Rose Garden

The UBC rose garden was established in 1949 and completed in 1994. The garden overlooks the Pacific Ocean and the North Shore Mountains. Due to its location, it is known as a place of celebration.  
 
Graduations, weddings, ceremonies, and student finding stillness can be found amongst the garden’s roses. Entering the garden, one can spot a grove of old-growth trees. The garden contains a variety of roses, with the most common being hybrid tea and floribunda roses that bloom from June to September.  
 
The UBC rose garden is situated on the unceded territory of the Musqueam people; therefore, it is crucial to unpack the colonial history that rose gardens carry. Rose gardens can also be understood as part of a colonial project, in which colonial empires used botany, such as roses, to assert control over land.  
 
The UBC rose garden participates in this history through the hybrid flowers and roses that are not Indigenous to Musqueam territory and reproduces European aesthetics that mask the ongoing violence on this unceded land. In addition, the rose garden’s placement adjacent to the old growth draws on colonial ecological insertion on Musqueam territory.