In the morning of Saturday, May 4th, a group of Shin Shin Youth Group volunteers went to the Municipal Rose Garden in San Jose to weed the rose bed and to trim the withered rose flowers.The San Jose Municipal Rose Garden is a historic rose garden in San Jose, California, in the Rose Garden District. Founded in 1927, the garden is exclusively dedicated to roses and features more than 3,500 shrubs representing 189 rose varieties. The AARS named the SJ Municipal Rose Garden as "America's Best Rose Garden", making it the winner in the first nationwide competition ever. We arrived at 9 AM and received instructions, tools and gloves from the director of this event. There were also other volunteers with us. Our first goal was to weed as many rose beds as possible and we each received a tool with a fork on one side. The weather was hot, but not as much as our passion of volunteering in America’s Best Rose Garden. In an hour, we had cleaned up almost all the weeds in the rose garden. After weeding, we started to trim off withered roses, dying leaves, and the dead branches to reduce nutrient flow into unwanted parts of the rose plant. During the trimming process, I found two varieties of roses that not only look amazing, but also have sweet fragrances. When it reached 12 PM, I left the rose garden, both tired from working hard and pleased by the view and fragrance of the roses.
- Katherine Mo |
Today, it was the first time I attended the Shin Shin Youth Group event at San Jose Municipal Rose Garden at 1649 Naglee Ave, San Jose, CA. My mom and I arrived at the Rose garden at 10:00 on May 4, 2019, through the side gate. I was immediately struck by how colorful and organized this garden was.
In this 5 ½ acre park, there are roses everywhere and of any color you could imagine, from pure white to the deepest reds. It was quite pretty with an archway of plants near the gate entrance. I was surrounded by the sweet aromas. No wonder it is recognized as “America’s Best Rose Garden” by the All American Rose Selection. I was glad to be one of the volunteers working there to make it prettier. After meeting at the front desk, we had a very short orientation. We were taught how to weed and then were each given some necessary tools including yellow or red rubber gloves, a five gallon bucket, a bright neon green vest, marking us as volunteers, and a tool for weeding. Now, we were ready to start. We strode over to where the other Shin Shin youths were, and started working on a patch of weeds next to some reddish orange roses. Although it was little bit windy with the sun beating hard on our backs, we were able to pull out buckets of weeds. Time passed quickly, and soon it was almost 12:00! We were finished with our time. Then, we poured the contents of our bucket into a trash can and returned all the tools. Looking around, I noticed that volunteers from all ages and backgrounds had come out to help with maintaining the pretty garden. I was really glad to be one of them and help clean a part of the colorful, fragrant, and pretty garden. - David Ke |