Bon Air Park Rose Garden
The garden's history is tied to the end of World War II and one woman who wanted to make sure Arlington's veterans were honored for their service.
Bon Air Park features a beautiful memorial rose garden that has more than 120 different varieties of roses and is often a chosen location for weddings. The Arlington Rose Foundation serves as a partner to advise and to help promote planting. Visitors can also enjoy azaleas, shade, sun, and ornamental tree gardens. Master Gardeners of Arlington maintain sun and shade gardens as teaching tools for local gardeners.
The garden's history is tied to the end of World War II and one woman who wanted to ensure Arlington's veterans were honored for their service. In 1937, Nellie Broyhill, her husband, Marvin, and their five children moved to Arlington from North Carolina. Seven years later, as World War II drew to a close, a November 1944 Time magazine article noted that cities across America were honoring their troops with living memorials.
Nellie, an avid gardener whose own yard on North Vermont Street boasted dozens of rose bushes, was already cultivating one such effort. That February, she created the Arlington Rose Garden Foundation to plant a memorial garden at the forthcoming Arlington Hospital (today’s Virginia Hospital Center). The landmark would honor local war veterans, including her son, Joel, who would become a Virginia congressman.
It was a complicated endeavor, hampered by funding and construction delays, but Nellie was undaunted. She enlisted donations from sources ranging from various local churches to the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. The garden debuted in 1951 and relocated to its current spot at Bon Air Park in 1964 when a hospital expansion claimed its original grounds.
“What she accomplished was unheard of [at the time],” says Pam Powers, president of the Arlington Rose Foundation. “She was playing in a man’s world.”
Nellie’s bench—dedicated in 1968, before she died in 1977—sits west of a stone plaque honoring the 841 Arlingtonians involved in the war effort. It is a fine spot for people-watching. And a good place to stop and smell the roses.
Images
