Oakland Rose Garden

The non-profit that I work at recently decided to give employees half days every other Friday for the summer so I took advantage of this yesterday and decided to start embarking on my list of essential Oakland experiences. I plan to blog about all of these experiences and to make it easier to reference these blog posts, I’ve created a page that will serve as a directory to these blogs posts. You can find this page at the top right hand corner of any page on this blog, under the Pages heading.

Since it was a beautiful day yesterday, my girlfriend and I decided to go to the Oakland rose garden. It’s kind of ridiculous that I had never been there before, considering that my sister used to live right across the street from it, but now that I’ve been, I’m sure I’ll be back.

I don’t know much about roses, but I really enjoyed the diversity of colors, shapes, sizes, and smells found throughout the garden (click on the pictures below to see larger versions).

The space is much bigger than I had expected, but not overwhelming because it’s easy to navigate section by section.

I appreciated that though there were several people in the garden while we were there, it was pretty easy to find somewhat private or at least quiet space.

I’d recommend bringing a picnic to the rose garden. My girlfriend brought some strawberries and cherries and we sat on a bench for a while enjoying the sweet fruit and staring at the roses. We also saw people jogging, walking dogs, pushing strollers, or just stopping to smell the roses. And before we went up to the rose garden, we stopped at Awaken Cafe for the most delicious chai I’ve ever had and the barista told us that he got married at the rose garden, which is apparently fairly common and it does seem appropriate.

Go check it out yourself:

700 Jean Street
Oakland, CA 94610
(You can also enter from Monte Vista Avenue or Vernon Street.)
Via AC Transit: It’s a quick walk from the 11, 12, and 57 bus lines.

And when you’re there, look out for these two perfect roses: