Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden

As a midsummer celebration, sweet husband and I went to Kansas City today to see the Rose Garden in Loose Park. Just getting there was an adventure! We have a pretty bad habit of setting off with vauge directions. I knew it was "near the plaza" and I thought that would be enough to find it. Not so much!

We drove around lost for awhile and then finally stopped at the Kauffman Memorial Gardens to see if we could get directions. I walked into the Kaufmann gardens and amidst the lilies--the smell of which was worth getting lost for--I found two couples and a group of about 10 very nice looking older ladies. Didn't feel comfortable disturbing the couples so I asked the ladies. They had to decide amongst themselves for a few minutes to tell me how to go, but they were able to tell me to get on Wornall street and that ended up being enough to find it. (Thanks nice ladies!)

We pulled up at about seven in the evening and enjoyed a nice sunset stroll, taking pictures and sniffing as we went along. It was a lot of fun realizing how much I've learned about roses in the past few months. I was able to tell sweet husband a little about the classifications and the bloom types--made me feel smart.

Most of the once blooming roses were already done and forming hips--I'll have to get around earlier next year to see those! But the continuous bloomers by themselves were still a feast as you can see below....



This was one of the first roses that caught my eye. It is a "Fabulous" (Floribunda). It's related to the Iceberg rose that was next to it (alas the picture didn't turn out) but apparently a little less disease resistant. It smelled better than the Iceberg though and the petals were a little more...fluffy (in a good way).



I've loved the Dainty Bess (Hybrid Tea) since the first time I saw one. It doesn't really scream "rose" and I love that it's a bit unusual. They smelled just sweet enough, and they're apparently pretty rugged.



I loved the color of this Honey Perfume (Floribunda) but the smell was the best part. Sweet husband usually doesn't like the smell of roses because they're almost too strong, but even he liked this one. It smells like a rose, but it's perfectly mellowed--just strong enough without making your head swim.



We couldn't resist this Mister Lincoln (Hybrid Tea) which looked like it should have been packaged up as the perfect long stemmed Valentine's rose.



The Paloma Blanca (Shrub) was such a pretty creamy white.



I really liked the color of this Heritage (Shrub-Austin). I don't usually like pink roses, but this one was nice and mellow.



This Milestone (Hybrind Tea) was kind of screaming out, "look at me! look at me!"