The Rose Garden

This delightful, fragrant garden was designed by garden architect Walter Bauer and opened in 1964. The aim was to create a garden with a historical connection, where older and newer rose varieties could grow side by side, while the site itself had a horticultural history dating back to the early 19th century.

Back in 1826, Märta Helena Reenstierna (known as ‘the Årsta Lady’) wrote in her diary about a lavish garden laid out by the industrialist John Burgman. This large, well-known garden was called Bourgmans Skantz, and grew not only roses but peaches, vines and pineapples too.

The layout of the Rose Garden

The roses are arranged following a traditional pattern in straight blocks surrounded by low-cut boxwood hedges. On the east side, the Rose Garden transitions into free-growing rose bushes, including old varieties that were cultivated before 1867. On the west side there is a row of lime trees, while on the north side stands a statue of the celebrated Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.

Four marble putti from the Bergshammar Manor House in Södermanland adorn each block of the Rose Garden in the summer. The figures are said to have been created in the early 18th century. They were made in Italy or France, and symbolise the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. While the garden was being planned in the early 1960s, a new location was also being sought for Emanuel Swedenborg’s summer house. The building had been brought to Skansen in 1896 and placed at the Bergsman’s Farmstead. The plan was to give the summer house a more prominent location, and in 1964 it was moved to its current – and natural – position in the Rose Garden.