Portland, Oregon has been known as the “City of Roses” for more than a century. The rose symbol appears on everything from manhole covers to dumpsters in the city, and is part of the skyline in many stylized illustrations.

The flower is not native to the region, so this reputation was gained via a series of events including the founding of the Portland Rose Society in 1889 and culminating in English hybrid rose breeders sending their roses to the International Rose Test Garden starting in 1918 to protect them from being destroyed in WWI.

Per the official website:

More than 10,000 individual rose bushes bloom in the International Rose Test Garden (IRTG) from late May through October, representing over 610 different rose varieties. The majority of roses in the Garden are commercially available. About 10 to 20 varieties are replaced each year with some of the best new roses released onto the market. Roses bloom from late May to October depending on the weather.

The primary purpose of the Garden is to serve as a testing ground for new rose varieties.

Best of all, it is free to visit.

Many of the established roses have trademarked names, while the test roses are coded by numbers. With 4.5 acres of ground, it was exhilarating and also a bit overwhelming to see everything. I am focusing here on newfound personal favorites and a few with fragrant names that I encountered. I wish I remembered how each specifically smelled, but didn’t take notes as I was sniffing, so shall rely on information from websites.

I generally gravitate toward larger blooms that are red with a tinge of orange, or orange with a tinge of pink. I find the orange-petaled roses to have a more robust but delicate, smooth fragrance—not spicy, but more fruity and tea-like.

My two newly discovered favorites are Cinnamon Dolce™ and Hot Cocoa™.

Cinnamon Dolce™ with its speckles looks like cinnamon, but did not smell like it to me. My other half maintains that it did to him. I remember it being deeper and smoother than I expected, but not spicy. One website describes its scent as “citrus, strong verbena.”

Hot Cocoa™ was the All-America Rose Selections (AARS) winner in 2003. This one convinced me that within its mild aroma hid hints of chocolate… but the internet tells me that it’s tea-like and fruity.

If I ever get the chance to have a rose garden in the right climate, I would want these two to start.

Here are a few other roses I found interesting but whose names I did not record.

To close, I leave you with this quote by William Shakespeare on a plaque marking the Shakespeare Garden: