Heritage Roses Flourish at Wyck Garden in Philadelphia

Walking along the unassuming gray fence surrounding Wyck, a National Historic Landmark in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood, passersby might have no idea that one of the oldest rose gardens in the country grows on its other side.

Unless, of course, that visitor was walking by in May, when the alluring aroma of thousands of blooming roses would woo anyone into entering the tranquil garden space.

“There’s something indescribable about this place,” said Wyck’s executive director, Kim Staub. “We just refer to it as ‘Wyckishness,’ a sense of peace and beauty and calm.”

Wyck’s landscape remains largely the same as it did hundreds of years ago when newlywed Jane Bowne Haines moved into her country home. In 1821, she decided to convert the kitchen garden into a rose garden.

Related Article: An Expert's Thoughts on Growing Roses Today

Now widely considered the oldest rose garden in the country still growing in its original plan, today that garden provides respite and retreat for urban dwellers seeking connection with nature. The 2.5-acre footprint of the property sprawls in a city of tight spaces. Here, visitors can stroll and savor the beauty of a bygone era, linger under the shade of historic trees or watch hundreds of honeybees hard at work. 

“It’s a very peaceful, naturally beautiful space that feels totally removed from Germantown Avenue just a few feet away,” said Grace Ford-Dirks, Wyck’s manager of interpretation and public outreach. “First-time visitors to Wyck are often surprised at just how much green space is behind the fence.”

The rose garden takes up just a quarter of an acre, but it holds more than 50 cultivars of heritage roses, representing 200 years of rose-breeding history, a repository still contained in the parterre plan envisioned by Haines in 1821. 

“Wyck is rare in its survival,” Staub said. “Rose gardens like the one at Wyck used to be fairly common, but many were removed for industrial development, ornamental lawns or just the difficulty of care. The Wistar-Haines family at Wyck bucked all of these trends.”

Subscribe to Horticulture Magazine

Several generations of this prominent Quaker family called the property home before Jane’s arrival. She lamented the fact that Wyck’s kitchen garden was not suitable for entertaining and wrote of wanting a “fine garden to show our visitors.” She needed a rose garden. 

Early plantings included China roses like ‘Old Blush’, damasks like ‘Celsiana’ and gallicas like the apothecary rose, Rosa gallica officinalis. But as roses evolved so too would the landscape at Wyck, taking on layers of history in the form of noisettes like ‘Champney’s Pink Cluster’ and climbing roses like ‘Tausendschoen’.

“Each generation at Wyck left their mark on the house and gardens, but each held on to what came before,” Staub said. “That kind of space is rare.”

Through her garden, Jane had also planted the seeds of what would become a familial love of horticulture. 

“When Jane Bowne Haines passed away, her youngest child was just 11 years old,” Staub explained. “And it was that child, Jane Reuben Haines, who truly saved and preserved the garden. Years later, that same garden was where Jane Bowne Haines II, named for her grandmother, learned about roses and horticulture, and would later go on to found the first women’s horticulture school in the United States.” Named the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, it was located on a farm near Ambler, Pa. The site is now part of Temple University’s Ambler campus.

Related Article: Plan a Visit to Historic Longwood Garden

As time passed and families uprooted, the garden grew wild.

A garden historian and the author of Private Gardens of Philadelphia, Nicole Juday once worked at Wyck as the landscape curator and helped revitalize the garden.

“By the early 1970s the home was only lived in seasonally, and the rose garden had been abandoned,” Juday said. “The plants continued growing among the weeds, suckering and reseeding into the gravel paths. When some antique rose buffs (Leonie Bell and Doug Seidel) came across the ruins of the gardens, they discovered that many of the things planted a hundred or more years prior were still there.”

There were also some unlabeled “mystery roses,” so the team set out to identify them. 

The resilience of Wyck’s old roses exemplifies the nature of heritage roses in general; they aren’t as persnickety as their hybridized, modern cousins. Heritage roses are ones bred or registered before 1867, when the first repeat-blooming hybrid tea rose was invented, according to Wyck’s current horticulturist and manager of living collections, Jackson Warren. 

“You can trace a lot of lines within rose breeding through our roses,” Warren said. “It’s a complicated puzzle, and having the varieties in front of you helps to put all the pieces together.”

Warren said most old roses demand much less maintenance than modern roses. He prunes deadwood in winter and then does a hard pruning in summer after blooming has finished, because most old roses bloom on second-year wood, unlike modern rebloomers. Philadelphia’s hot, humid summers also necessitate regular spraying with bio-fungicide. 

“In many cases, some of these old roses are better than a lot of the modern roses,” according to Mike Shoup, president of the Heritage Rose Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation of old garden roses.

“They’re like time-tested little living pieces of history,” he continued. “The weaklings have long since died, and you’re only privy to what has been able to survive Mother Nature. She’s essentially presenting you with these survivors, the best of the best.”

Shoup thinks decades of breeding has removed much of the “soul” of the rose: the magnificently unique yet quintessential fragrance the antique cultivars exude.

Related Article: Rose Companions to Plant in the Garden

As most old roses bloom just once per year, timing a visit can be tricky. Peak bloom happens each May but is ever dependent on nature’s whims. When the roses finally awaken, they always steal the show.

“During the short time they are in bloom, they are the most extravagantly beautiful and exquisitely scented plant in the garden,” Juday said. 

Wyck holds a Celebration of the Roses Festival each year. In 2026, it will be held on May 23, and it coincides with Philadelphia’s year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. For additional information about the house and gardens and to plan a visit, visit wyck.org.

Lori Litchman is a Philadelphia-based writer. She’s the author of 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Day Trips.