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On a quiet Wednesday morning, volunteers are hard at work weeding and trimming a patch of land that you’ll smell before you see. The gentle croons and melodies of Billie Holiday and Big Band swing waft vaguely over conversations between members of the Syracuse Rose Society as they dig through the grounds of the E.M. Mills Memorial Rose Garden.

Pat Ennis, who has volunteered with the Rose Society for seven years, is deadheading roses. Deer nibble at the blooms in the summer, making more work for the volunteers, who need to trim the leftovers down to keep the plant healthy. Despite the tedious work, Ennis remains passionate.

“In the middle of June when everything is in bloom, this place is like Heaven,” Ennis said. “It’s the happiest place for me in the world.”

Tucked behind Syracuse University’s Dellplain Hall and anchoring the southwest corner of Thornden Park, the Mills Rose Garden houses much more history than one look at it might suggest. The garden, which was planted in 1911 in Kirk Park and moved to its current location in 1922, is one of the oldest municipal rose gardens in the United States.

The grounds are home to roses that arrived in the United States centuries ago, and are separated into distinct parts to designate fragrant roses, Old Garden roses and various types of shrubs.

Though the City of Syracuse owns them, the beauty of the grounds is maintained by Syracuse Rose Society volunteers. Members work in the garden at least once a week from April through November. Beyond the task of caring for the Mills Garden, members of the Rose Society engage with the local community through opportunities like tabling at the New York State Fair, and visit other rose gardens together in central New York.

Pam Dooling, one of the members of the society, is busy preparing for the upcoming convention for the New York District of the American Rose Society, which starts Sept. 9 in Syracuse and includes an awards show and banquet for rose societies from around New York state. The event is a big deal for the city to host, she said.

Dooling, who serves as the membership chair of the society, said that much of the work being done on the grounds is making up for this past year’s difficult winter, during which the Mills Garden lost over 300 rose bushes.

“For roses, it was a very bad winter. In the spring, it was the same thing,” Dooling said. “What happened was, it got cold, and then we had a couple of days of warm, and then it got cold, and a couple of days warm.”

Carl Grillo, the lead volunteer with the Mills Garden, is focused on breathing new life into the space. His journey with horticulture started after his two daughters gifted him two roses to celebrate his retirement, and he took the challenge to keep them alive. Since then, he’s worked in the garden and learned more about the flowers, including spending time taking care of the climbers — the roses that bloom on Mills Garden’s signature archways.

But as much as Grillo loves the grounds, he worries about how few volunteers work the garden compared to the amount of roses it holds.

“We just can’t get to everything,” Grillo said. “We don’t have enough people to maintain these many roses, we just don’t.”

Other members say they need more financial support. Kragh wrote a letter to the editor in August on behalf of the society’s executive board requesting that the county invest surplus funds in the garden. She said that the Mills Garden could use money to redesign the sprinkler system in the space.

Eager to gain the support of students and utilize the space as an educational center, Martha Roman said she wants to prioritize sustainable gardening to draw in new crowds. Roman, who is a newer member of the Society, said she’s looking for ways to modernize how the society operates, such as reducing pesticides, to draw younger people to the garden.

Roman said students could use the grounds as a place for education, such as a center to practice botany or hybridizing. Student volunteers at SU and SUNY-ESF are welcomed as well, she said.

“We’re trying to rethink some of our basic approaches, and hopefully that’s what younger people would be able to contribute and develop with us, because we don’t know everything,” Roman said.

There’s no shortage of community and dedication in the Syracuse Rose Society, though. During volunteering hours, members in the garden greet each other warmly and garden with care.

Kragh even invited her father, who recently moved to Syracuse from Kentucky, to help out, and another volunteer, Adelaide Anello, said she started coming to the garden in the mornings with her father as a way to receive community service hours for her school.

The Syracuse Rose Society is a small but passionate community, and Dooling said she’s ready for more help. With winter on the horizon, the Society and its volunteers will be focused on cutting down the roses and protecting them with mulch starting in October. She said the volunteers will show up, even in the rain, to work on the garden.

“I just love this garden, and the people that are so dedicated, working so hard, love the garden also,” Dooling said. “So if we don’t take care of it, who will?”

Published on August 31, 2022 at 11:49 pm