On Tuesday, Sept. 30, city officials and Fremont residents gathered to see a new take on an old space: an updated plaza and rose garden marking the main entrance to the historical California Nursery Historical Park in Niles.
Fremont city manager Karena Shackelford said, “This is more than a garden. It’s a living museum, a space for reflection—which I’ve already claimed; if you’re looking for me you can find me here—and a celebration of nature and community in bloom.”
The rose garden, and the historic nursery, trace their roots back to the state’s agricultural past. The California Nursery Company was founded by John Rock in 1865, relocated to Niles in 1884, and taken over by the Roeding family in 1917. The nursery supplied palms to the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915, some of which returned to the park and can still be seen today. It sold unique rose varieties and fruit varieties, seen in the catalogs preserved in the archives…