The Duluth Rose Garden in Leif Erikson Park began as a joint effort between the City and the Duluth Rose Society, first envisioned by Mrs. Ausma Klints and created with the help of Mrs. Virginia Sellwood and Mrs. Sigrid Mitchell, whose fundraising provided more than $100,000 to establish the first rose garden. Out of this partnership the Duluth Rose Society was established on September 6, 1967, and city employees dug the garden and installed a fountain that had previously stood at the corner of Superior Street and London Road for watering horses. The first roses were planted in the spring of 1968 by the Duluth Rose Society, and the garden grew into a major Duluth attraction drawing many thousands of visitors each year and was chosen as a Public Display Garden by All American Rose Selections, Inc., in 1970. The Duluth Rose Society maintained the garden until 1986, when the City took over management until 1989. In the fall of 1989, the roses were removed because of the impending Duluth I-35 Extension project, though many of the roses dug that fall can still be found in family gardens in Duluth, while the fountain was stored for a future garden and the new I-35 forged ahead. An agreement between Federal, State, and City officials gave Duluth the opportunity to restore the Rose Garden at its present site, where the park was built over the I-35 tunnel on a base of sand, fill, and topsoil 7 to 11 feet deep and made one-half acre larger by a retaining wall on the east side. Soil temperatures over the freeway can be up to five degrees cooler in spring, slowing rose growth by about a week. The fountain was reinstalled in 1994, and several benches from England were added along with an Italian style gazebo and a wrought iron fence. In the spring of 1994, city gardening crews planted more than 2,000 rose bushes, and the City dedicated the Rose Garden at Leif Erikson Park on August 27, 1994. Leif Erikson Park and its gardens are managed by the City of Duluth, and after the garden's completion the Lake Superior Rose Society was formed to assist the City with major projects including winterizing the roses in fall, raising them in spring, and pruning them during summer bloom. The Rose Garden was again chosen as a public display garden for All America Rose Selections, Inc. in 1997, in recognition of the rose quality and the overall standard of excellence throughout the park.
