Rose blooms in every color abound at the four-and-a-half acre international rose test garden in Portland. Founded in 1917, the international rose garden served not only as a collection of American hybrids, but also a safe haven for the roses of Europe that were in danger of being damaged and lost forever during the bombings of WWI.

New rose hybrids are tested at each of twenty-four sites throughout the country (including the Portland garden) and referred to only by a code number. The entries are then "evaluated for two years with fourteen different pieces of desirable criteria including plant habit, vigor, disease resistance, color, flower production, form, foliage, and fragrance." The test garden studies up to 200 rose cultivars each year.

[International Rose Test Garden; 1-6. c. lynn; 7. IRTG]

Tomorrow is the big day. We're moving to the west coast to become Portlanders. This is a huge migration for me—across the country and a six hour flight from friends and family—but as my father's daughter, the thought of a leap across the globe doesn't seem so outlandish. My father came to New York from Europe in the '70s leaving everything he ever knew. He was 28. And somehow I've always thought, ever since I was little, that at some point in my life I would inevitably follow suit and try to live somewhere foreign and new.

There are so many things that I will miss about my dear city, so I try to console myself with the prospect of future visits and bury myself in the arrangements and processes that one undergoes to move one's life across vast expanses of land. Portland Rose City, here we come.

[1. corey kindred]