Back from blight: Generosity, hard work and dedication help revive historic rose garden

A historic rose garden overlooking Northport Bay has been revitalized thanks to the generosity of a Northport resident, the hard work of volunteers with the Centerport Garden Club, and the support and dedication of the crew at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum. The 100-year-old garden – with its centerpiece fountain and brick pathways – is adjacent to the Vanderbilt Reichert Planetarium. In spring 2020, the garden was found to be infected with the highly contagious and incurable rose rosette disease, and had to be destroyed.

“We were still in the middle of dealing with Covid and figuring out ways to get people back on the property,” said Jim Munson, an East Northport resident and the Vanderbilt Museum’s operations supervisor. “It was just more devastating news on top of already unprecedented devastating news.”

Because the disease was in the roots of the plants and surrounding soil, the grounds crew had to individually remove each of the garden’s 50-plus rose bushes, wrap them in plastic bags and dispose of them, Munson said. They then had to dig out and dispose of approximately one foot of dirt across the entire rose garden, an effort that filled the back of a dump truck.

“Then we waited, two years, to allow the earth to cleanse itself before any new bushes could be reintroduced into the soil,” Munson added. “It was a long wait, but the results were incredibly worth it.”

In full bloom and spectacular
A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place at the official reopening of the rose garden this past Tuesday, June 13; blue skies after an overnight downpour greeted a crowd from the Centerport Garden Club, there to celebrate the fruits of their labor.

“As you can see the garden is once again in full bloom and absolutely spectacular,” said Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan, the Vanderbilt Museum’s executive director. “We’re here this morning because of the dedication and brilliant work of the Centerport Garden Club and we just can’t thank you enough.”

Wayland-Morgan expressed special gratitude for club members and rose garden committee co-chairs Nancy Schwartz and Linda Pitra, as well as Munson and his team for helping with the vision and implementation of this latest phase of life in the rose garden.

Also the recipient of many thanks was a Northport resident who covered the entire cost of the new garden. “It’s through her extraordinary generosity that this project was made possible,” Wayland-Morgan said. (The donor wished to be anonymous for this story.)

An unexpected journey
“I stand here just full of wonder and delight looking at what many beautiful people can do together to create such a lovely garden,” said Schwartz who, along with Pitra, spoke at Tuesday’s event.

Pitra, who admitted to “not really getting roses” at the beginning of this project, was pulled into the garden by Mary Ahern, past president of the Centerport Garden Club, and invited to co-chair the rose garden committee, pre-blight. Garden club members commit themselves to community outreach and for years have taken on the responsibility of maintaining and enhancing many local gardens including those at the Harborfields Library, the Grist Mill and the Vanderbilt.

Weeding, deadheading, and fertilizing the rose garden was what Pitra was expecting. “That’s what we signed up for, not what we got,” she joked. The co-chairs brought master rosarian Cathy Guzzardo to the garden in 2020, hoping she’d offer advice to them on how to transition the existing garden to organic practices. That’s when Guzzardo noticed the rose rosette disease running rampant on the rose bushes.

“We had no choice but to pull them up,” Pitra said. She and Schwartz suddenly had a monumental task in front of them, one that resulted in a “world-class work of art,” said Munson. “They went through a dozen different design boards and continually tweaked and changed placement and color, texture and tone, until everything was exactly how they wanted it. It truly was like watching an artist orchestrate their grand masterpiece, and in the end that’s exactly what it became.”

The new garden, unlike the original, now incorporates many non-rose elements, including companion plants which will help the new roses thrive and avoid future infestation. Hydrangeas and rounded boxwood were added, as well as brand new trellises and an arbor. Initial planting of the new garden began in April 2021, with volunteers waiting until spring 2023, the soil now safe from the blight, to plant roses. The bushes, now babies, are expected to grow three or four feet high.

The years-long odyssey has been a labor of love and joy, Schwartz said, and a true team effort. From Guzzardo, who helped in the selection of disease-resistant roses, to Munson and the grounds crew at the Vanderbilt, including Carsten Jensen, whose “infinite patience and courtesy” were benchmarks of an irrigation system that individually waters the over 70 plants in the garden, everyone involved played a significant role in the project’s success.

At the end of her speech, Schwartz thanked her fellow garden club members, who every other Thursday averaged eight to ten members on their hands and knees, putting in hard labor while making great memories. “It wasn’t that you just came and you worked,” she said. “You shared your camaraderie, you shared your company and you shared so many tidbits of wisdom about gardening. It was a joy doing this with you.”