The Abridged version:
- The Sacramento Rose Brigade will kick off its first deadheading event of the year from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the rose garden in McKinley Park.
- No experience is needed. Tools and instruction are provided, with weekly volunteer days continuing every Wednesday.
- Volunteers help care for more than 1,200 roses, keeping one of Sacramento’s most beloved rose gardens in bloom.
There’s a certain kind of person who knows exactly what “deadheading” means. And then there’s everyone else.
This Saturday morning, both are invited.
At the Frederick N. Evans Memorial Rose Garden in McKinley Park, the Sacramento Rose Brigade is calling all volunteers who are willing to learn about caring for roses. Let’s nip one thing in the bud: no experience is needed.
Spread across an acre and a half, the garden’s 1,200 roses are in peak bloom. McKinley Park is home to the largest rose garden in Sacramento. It’s maintained by the Rose Brigade, a group of volunteers throughout the Sacramento region that prune and care for public rose gardens year-round.
In 2013, Lyn Pitts was tending to a single perennial flower bed in McKinley Park. She knew nothing about roses.
“I turned around from my little bed and looked out at that one and a half acres of roses,” she said. “And realized I’ve got a lot to learn!”
She learned. And shared.
Over the years, Pitts has helped train thousands of volunteers, passing down her knowledge through show and tell. It’s hands-on experience — how to cut just above the right leaf, how to spot disease before it spreads and how to bring a rose back, season after season.
Pitts says this volunteer opportunity is unique. “You know, most volunteer situations have a specific date and time or are under someone else’s structure and schedule,” she said. “Once you become trained at McKinley rose garden, you have your own schedule. If you get home from work and you just need a break, you need to get in touch with mother nature, head over to the rose garden and have at it.”
Pitts lives in Rio Linda and volunteers at the rose garden every week.
“I didn’t get to where I am without people helping me,” she said. “So, it makes me really happy to put that information forward.”
William Fredericksen, the city of Sacramento community garden coordinator, says that’s part of the magic.
“Gardeners are the most optimistic people on the planet,” Fredericksen said. “It takes somebody with such an acute sense of how the world could be to see a patch of bare dirt and imagine flowers and vibrant growth and stability.”
On Saturday, he’ll be leading the first deadheading event of the season. It sounds technical, but the idea is simple. Remove what’s spent, and you make room for something new to grow.
Cut back the faded blooms, and six weeks later, the plant answers you with more.
Roses, Fredericksen points out, are part of the apple family. Left alone, they’d put their energy into fruit. But at the rose garden, every careful cut redirects that effort back into bloom after bloom stretching from early spring well into October.
And every one of those blooms depends, at least in part, on people showing up and doing the work.
Fredericksen says the Rose Brigade is a collection of personalities who see each plant as a puzzle, and each pathway at the park as something worth protecting.
“They’re resilient,” Fredericksen said. “A little opinionated,” he adds with a smile. “And that’s because they care deeply about getting it right.”
The result is a place that feels both curated and completely alive.
“It’s natural beauty,” Fredericksen said. “It’s the sense of seeing the pure beauty that nature can create and put on display, and the variety of shapes and textures and colors and smells, seeing what nature can do. And the whole palette is breathtaking.”
It’s a space people come to for all kinds of reasons. A walk or a reset. A special memory or a moment of peace.
Now, it’s also a place to learn.
What makes a good Rose Brigade volunteer
There’s a common assumption that you need to know something about gardening before stepping into a space like this.
That idea gets trimmed away pretty quickly at the rose garden in McKinley Park.
What matters most is how you show up.
“We are looking for attention to detail, a positive attitude and good situational awareness,” Fredericksen said. “We’re out here to have a good time. We’re out here to make the park more beautiful. You don’t have to know anything about plants. If you ever have a question our volunteer heads are fantastic, they’re on site.”
The work itself is teachable. Volunteers learn how to find a spent bloom, trace the stem down to the right five-leaf node and make a clean, confident cut. Frederickson says deadheading and pruning require presence and awareness.
“You’re working inside the plant,” Fredericksen explains. “Roses have prickles, so you’ve got to be aware of the space around you, the people around you, and the plant itself.”
There are also rhythms and a peace to deadheading — focusing on one plant at a time while knowing each small action contributes to something larger.
It’s about tending a shared space.
A garden rooted in Sacramento’s story
The Frederick N. Evans Memorial Rose Garden has been part of Sacramento’s identity for nearly a century. Established in the 1920s, it came out of a movement to create public spaces that offered recreation and beauty.
McKinley Park opened in 1871 as East Park, named for its location in the undeveloped area just east of city limits. At that time, it was the only large recreation area around Sacramento — 30 acres. The city purchased the park in 1902 for $12,500. It was then renamed in honor of President William McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901.
The rose garden is named in honor of Frederick N. Evans, a landscape architect and the city’s first parks superintendent. Evans was devoted to making the garden a showplace of the city park system and a place to learn. He replaced a former running track with the garden’s signature oval and curated a collection that would prosper in the hot Sacramento summers. It was named in his honor in 1946.
Over the decades, it has grown into one of the largest public rose gardens in the region, and the circle of education and inspiration continues.
Fredericksen agrees, adding, “If you have not been in the space before, please come out and see the space. Peak bloom began at the very beginning of this month, but it is still rip-roaring. It is a fantastic place of caring and beauty, where folks can come and see the best of the best of the rose family. It is a beautiful place to walk and have your senses thrilled. The wall of fragrance in April is so powerful and soothing. And it’s just a fantastic space to be and calm yourself.”
If you go: McKinley Park Deadheading will take place at 3255 H St. in Sacramento from 9 a.m. to noon April 25.
Rob Stewart is a senior correspondent and host with PBS KVIE, and reports for Abridged.
