Elizabeth Park in Hartford is in full bloom

HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB) - It’s time to stop and smell the roses, especially if you are in Elizabeth Park.

The roses are in full bloom, and park managers say they are seeing some of the biggest roses ever this year.

The park has over 10,000 bushes.

Elizabeth Park is known as the oldest rose garden in the country. It was established in 1904, and they still have many of the roses from the original planting.

Rosarian Stephen Scannillo says the rose garden takes a lot of work, and this time of year requires a lot of weeding.

He also says the roses came in bigger and fuller this year.

“Roses love cool evenings, and this year we noticed that many of the roses have never had as large flowers as they’ve had and that is predominantly because of the cool May we’ve had. That’s an important growing time so they adapted to that by producing larger flowers,” says Scannillo.

“It’s enchanting, amazing, the arches are unbelievable,” says visitor Dawn Gingras.

Wednesday kicks off a summer concert series in the park.

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