Stop what you're doing and smell these roses...

If you haven't been there in a while, it's high time to get over to Delaware Park's Rose garden. The Rose garden is across the street from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. I think you can smell the roses from there on a humid non-windy day. I can almost smell them from my house...

I'm no big fan of roses, they seem to me to be fussy, difficult, and prone to blackspot, but I do enjoy the work others put into them. And the Rose Garden, in my estimation, has never looked better than it does right now.

It features many varieties from the All-American Rose Selections -- 33 different beds of them in fact. The pergola, seen in the top photo is a popular place for weddings and wedding photos. It sits in the 35-acre Frederic Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park, just one of the six parks and many parkways and circles that make up what Olmsted called "the best planned city in the world."

The Rose Garden is maintained by the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy and tucked between the historic Marcy Casino on Hoyt Lake (used for weddings, parties and meetings); Shakespeare Hill where Shakespeare in the Park is performed each summer (second longest running free Shakespeare festival in the country); a play ground; and the world-class Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Pretty good company. And a public space setting any city would covet.

Each bed features a different rose, and is outlines by a narrow strip of grass and metal curbing.
A hand-full of white tuteurs mix nicely with the roses.

You can see SUNY Buffalo State's Rockwell Hall's tower peeking over the tress on the right. It's designed after Philadelphia's Independence Hall.

To the left between the trees you can see the 1901 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, just across the street from the garden.