Botanical Garden of Florence
Roses
All collections
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The oldest record of roses in the Botanical Garden of Florence can be found in the“Catalogo delle piante” compiled by Giovanni TargioniTozzetti in 1748, which describes 16 different roses, mostly wild species.
In 1841, Antonio Targioni Tozzetti lists 39 roses in his Catalogue of Plants in the Botanical Garden. A manuscript from the end of the 19th century reports rose introductions from 1892 until the first decades of the 20th century. Huge acquisitions were made in 1948, when 14 specimen from the Istituto Agrario delle Cascine in Florence and 18 from the Mati Nursery in Pistoia were planted. In the 1990s, a section dedicated to the historical garden was created, which also included botanical and ancient roses. The revision of the existing roses and the need for a new way of communication, led to the creation in the early 2000s of the display 'Roses in a row', that saw the collaboration of the famous rodologist Franca Vittoria Bessi.
Over the last few years, the collection, that counts around 100 specimen, has been considerably depleted , due either specifically to heat waves and climate change in general, which is definitely unfavourable to less tolerant varieties, and the death of older specimen. A general overhaul of the collection is therefore planned with the inclusion of varieties and hybrids that are more resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses.