Los Alamos County completes deer fence around Memorial Rose Garden
More than 200 roses are finally behind a deer fence, ending three seasons of chicken-wire cages at the Memorial Rose Garden. The fix protects a living memorial and the volunteers who keep it blooming.
The Memorial Rose Garden’s more than 200 roses are now protected by a permanent deer fence, ending years of damage control that had left Los Alamos Garden Club volunteers wrapping plants in chicken wire. The new fence is already operational, includes ADA-accessible gates, and gives one of Los Alamos County’s most visited small landmarks a practical layer of protection where repeated patchwork fixes had not been enough.
Los Alamos County scheduled the installation to begin Nov. 24, 2025 and expected it to finish by Dec. 9, 2025, working with Valley Fence Company and the county’s Community Services Department. Club members had spent three seasons relying on chicken-wire cages, a stopgap that kept deer off the roses but did little to solve the larger problem. With the fence in place, the garden’s caretakers are looking ahead to a formal dedication in May.
The improvement carries a weight that goes well beyond landscaping. Historical records describe the Memorial Rose Garden as the oldest public rose garden in New Mexico, and one of the oldest public gardens in Los Alamos. The Los Alamos Garden Club was founded in January 1947 at the home of Pat Kellogg and has long been recognized as the oldest garden club in the state. The garden itself grew out of a practical need and a civic tradition, created as a living memorial at a time when Los Alamos had no cemetery. It sits next to Fuller Lodge, where gardens had already taken root during the Los Alamos Ranch School era, including a flower garden created as early as 1930 by Helen Sulier, the school’s nurse.
The club’s volunteers still tend the site on Monday mornings from April through October, pruning, fertilizing, mulching and weeding the roses, with some notices describing weekly care through October. Its spring plant and yard sale helps pay for scholarships and rose garden supplies, tying the garden’s survival to the same volunteer labor that has sustained it for decades. The fence now relieves some of that burden while preserving the space for visitors who come for blooms, memorial visits and the quiet setting around Fuller Lodge.
County records show this is only the latest in a long line of preservation work. In 2002, Los Alamos County built the cement Historical Walkway, removed an old chain-link fence and decorative chain, and installed path lighting. In 2004, the county added a $5,000 irrigation system and reinstalled the Table Fountain with Rock. The Memorial Rose Garden, also a Blue Star Memorial Byway site, has been treated as a community treasure for generations, and the new deer fence extends that stewardship into the future.
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