Madrid City Council has added 645 rose bushes of 28 historic varieties to the Retiro Rose Garden through manual grafting, a technique that allows for the conservation of specimens that are no longer available on the market.
The Retiro Rose Garden holds varieties of roses that can no longer be purchased in any nursery. To prevent their disappearance, Madrid City Council is resorting to a handcrafted technique: manual grafting. According to Noticias para Municipios, the conservation project has allowed for the incorporation of 645 new rose bushes of 28 varieties from the historical collection.
The delegate for Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility, Borja Carabante, and the councilman for Cleaning and Green Areas, José Antonio Martínez Páramo, visited the work last Friday, which is part of the comprehensive conservation contract for the gardens of Buen Retiro.
The Rose Garden occupies 0.8 hectares within the park and was established in 1915 at the initiative of Cecilio Rodríguez, then head gardener of Retiro. Rodríguez was inspired by the Bagatelle Rose Garden in Paris to create a collection that eventually brought together nearly 12,000 rose bushes of 366 varieties. The garden suffered severe damage during the Civil War and was restored by Rodríguez himself, who planted around 4,000 specimens. Between 2001 and 2006, a comprehensive restoration was undertaken.
The current project began in the spring of 2025, coinciding with the peak flowering period, when it is easier to distinguish each variety. Technicians identified all specimens, reviewed historical records, and corrected inaccurate information. When a variety was represented by very few specimens, they collected plant material to reproduce it through manual grafting, the only system that allows for the conservation of roses that have already disappeared from the market. For this, the City Council has relied on specialists in the production and reproduction of historical rose bushes.
In addition to planting, the substrate, irrigation, and soil preparation in the beds and borders have been improved. The signage is also being renewed: the installation of 70 new informational elements with data obtained during the identification process is planned.
Currently, the Rose Garden houses more than 5,000 specimens of over 130 varieties of low and climbing rose bushes. The central beds feature modern roses, while the north and south accesses preserve the old varieties. Carabante has stated that the City Council will continue to apply technical and scientific criteria to preserve the botanical richness of the garden.
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