Volunteers help with the raising of the roses at the Duluth Rose Garden

Monday, volunteers helped out the Duluth rose society and the Duluth Parks and Recreation Department with the raising of the roses.

The process follows the Minnesota tipping method. Which buries the roses underground with insulation to keep them protected from the winter. Saturday and Monday, it was finally time to dig them up and get them ready for spring and summer.

“A lot of our roses are not zone hardy,” Says park maintenance worker Matt Bovee, “And when they are not zone hardy we need to give them an extra layer of insulation. So we bury them, they lay dormant, and the dirt and leaves give them that protection from getting too cold or from any of the harsh elements the winter can bring out here.”

Now that the roses are up and out of the ground it’s only a matter of time before they start to bloom.

Bovee says, “We are probably going to get our first flush… usually it’s like June. Given this winter and this spring I’m not exactly sure how that will work out. But I will say we could start looking at the end of May beginning of June.”