The map has been lost for years but the roots run deep, leaving traces and hints of what the original gardener set in the soil for spring blooms and the enjoyment of the community.
Today, a team of women work keeping the prosperous roses trimmed, treated with love and care, and tended for the eyes of the community.
However, not many people in the community are aware that this blooming jewel exists.
Located in Dominguez Park on Flagler Lane between190th St. and Beryl St. in Redondo Beach, the rose garden is the center of Redondo’s Historical Markers. Surrounding the garden is the Morrell House, a 1906 Victorian home that was moved from Catalina Avenue to its current location and took 19 years to refurbish. A living history museum, the structure teaches visitors about the community’s past in the comfort of the Morrell’s living room.
The Queen Anne Museum dominates the other side of the gardens. Home to newspaper clippings, historical artifacts and a team of knowledgeable historians who are there to share their knowledge with patrons, the porch offers a beautiful view to the gardens and the women who tend to their buds.
Kathy Barron, a 68 year-old Hermosa Beach resident, spearheads the gardening of the Victorian-style courtyard.
“I just wandered up to the garden in the summer of 2004,” Barron said. “I saw some people cleaning it up for a wedding. It was waist high and full of weeds. After the wedding they didn’t return, but I did.”
She makes sure there are people tending the garden every week, taking care of the delicate plants. The women make sure diseased leaves are separated from the healthy plants and everything is weeded and trimmed.
“We are here on Tuesdays, normally starting around 9 a.m and ending around 12, depending on the amount of work we have to do,” said Isa Anderson, a 71 year-old Hermosa Beach resident. “We work slowly on each quadrant and do what has to be done. Today we’re just cleaning them up. It’s like picking blueberries.”
Rose petals and yellowed leaves are scattered on the ground in piles. Pops of pinks, yellows and reds sit detached from their source ready to be piled into a wheelbarrow and composted. Anderson burrows her hands into the thorny plants, saving her hands from scratches with a thick pair of gloves. She concentrates on the plants, carefully picking away the dying remnants.
In early January Barron holds a Saturday session inviting community members to the garden to teach them how to prune roses.
“From the people who come to the pruning session Kathy invites everybody to stick around and help until the pruning is done, usually in March,” said Gemma Scharfenberger, a 68 year-old longtime rose gardener. “That’s how I got involved; Isa, too. I’ve been doing it about five years now.”
Scharfenberger moves to a side of the Queen Anne Museum and smells a tall-stemmed Mr. Lincoln rose.
“Check this one out,” she said, beckoning. “It’s at peak stage. Isn’t that beautiful? Those are about to go but they are so beautiful I’m not going to pick them yet.”
She reached down and stroked the deep red rose, smelling it one more time before moving on to a smaller white plant.
“To be honest,” she said, “it’s a lift to work with the flowers and enjoy their beauty. I think you enjoy their beauty and the specialness of them when you are in them and working, getting the dead ones out and working on them. I enjoy them more than if I were to just walk through the garden. As with all volunteer activities, I think you get more out of them than you put in and I think that’s true with this garden. I have a little garden at home, I plant a little this and that here and there but I don’t have any roses of my own. To be honest I haven’t had that great of luck. But because I do this here I have no need for them at home.”
Anderson was still diligently working on the front quadrants, plucking dying buds from their stems.
“One time,”Andersonsaid, “somebody came by and asked, ‘Why are you cutting them all back?’ We had to explain that you have to do that to encourage them to grow back even more.”
After retirement Anderson got a horticulture degree at UCLA extension. Since then she has been volunteering at the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden, spending Tuesdays at the rose garden and even helps her friends who can no longer work on their own gardens.
“To me, it’s relaxing.” she explained. “It’s great to be outdoors. We enjoy trying to keep them beautiful and we love it when people enjoy them. The plaza is so nice and a lot of people don’t even know it exists. We just invite people to come, see and enjoy.”
