The Portland Rose Festival
...more than just roses...

Few people can resist the velvety-soft petals of a rose; you simply have to put your face close and inhale the heady fragrance wafting upwards and have a happy smile on your face. Roses are an integral part of our lives; they bring us joy with their stunning array of colors.

We use rose products, poets write about roses, weddings are blessed with rose petals and many wardrobes and bureau drawers are kept fragrant with rose potpourri sachets.

Roses have become woven into our lives to the extent that we sometimes forget how special these miracles of nature really are. The city of Portland in the state of Oregon USA annually puts on a rose festival, to remind people of the wonders of roses.

The Rose Festival is an annual 10-day event that brings more than half a million visitors into the city for exhilarated fun, fireworks displays, the Starlight run, dragon boat racing, parades with huge floats entirely covered in roses, both day and night-time, carnival fun, lots to eat and drink, and the grand crowning of the annual Rose Queen.

For information about the actual Portland Rose Festival for the current years events and schedules click the link below:
Portland Rose Festival Site

2008 Events were...(in order of taking place)

WaMu Waterfront Village
WaMu Fireworks Spectacular
Rose Cup Races presented by Temp-Control Mechanical Corp.
KeyBank Starlight Run
Portland General Electric/SOLV Starlight Parade
Fred Meyer Junior Parade
Fleet Week
**Lloyd Center/Portland Rose Society 120th Annual Spring Rose Show**
Concert At The Park
Queen's Coronation Presented By Pacific Power
Regence Grand Floral Walk
KeyBank Grand Floral Parade
"From One Rose" Motion Picture Screening
Grand Floral Parade Float Viewing
Portland Rose Festival Dragon Boat Race
History & Roses Tour presented by Windermere

[So look for each of these events for the current year!]

For many people roses are stunning, beautiful examples of what Mother Nature can put on display, and for most of us to receive an artistically designed bouquet of roses is a warmly emotional moment that we cherish.

For others roses are a life-long passion and they will spend time in all weather to cultivate these extraordinary blooms, to take care of each of them from a tiny rose bush, to those first precious buds.

Lastly, it is the unfurling of the petals that show off their deep-hued core. Rose cultivators will research and study to be able to grow a new hybrid, and no effort is too much.

All of us who love the pure beauty of the rainbow display truly understand the passion that drives those who, year after year, work towards the Portland Festival to bring homage to this flower that is the Queen in Mother Nature’s tiara.

Go to Information on the Portland Rose Garden

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