Found this on their web site:
"A new rose garden, the 5-acre International Rosarium, opened in 1994, featuring more than 3,000 roses and beautifully landscaped spaces".
Doyou how recently were the rose beds torn out?

RoseBlush1 said:Sherry ... you can forget the Descanso rose gardens. The historical rose beds have all been torn up and most of the roses disposed of as trash.

That's so sad since many of those roses were quite rare and may never be found in any other garden again.

Oh no.... That's so sad. I haven't been in probably 25 years.. Things change. Sometimes not for the best.
I hate to think of old roses as a passing fad. I'll bet you know (or know of) Barbara Worl. I used to work in her garden in Menlo Park before I moved to Santa Cruz. She also had a big vacant lot in Palo Alto where she grew a pretty big collection of old roses. When the property was sold, it was bulldozed. I don't remember how many they managed to save or get cuttings from, but it wasn't everything...

What I understand from lurking on another site, the new rose garden is primarily planted with popular modern roses.

And the reference to "3,000 roses" doesn't mean much because it could mean 10 each of only 300 cultivars.

Wrong post.

Seedfork said:Found this on their web site:
"A new rose garden, the 5-acre International Rosarium, opened in 1994, featuring more than 3,000 roses and beautifully landscaped spaces".
Doyou how recently were the rose beds torn out?

Larry,

I belong to a private rose group and one of the members wrote kind of a status report about what she saw on November 23rd. There are still some of the old roses there, but not many.

There has been a quite lengthy discussion about Descanso in this group. I would have to get permission to share posts here.

Yes, they are replacing these valuable treasures with modern roses.

Sherry .... you probably know Jill Perry who also lives in Santa Cruz and is the curator of the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden. I think she would know if the SJHRG got any of Barbara's roses.