By the time this map of Salt Lake City was publishe 
decades. The rose can now be found in the gardens of the historic Beehive House, mapped with a number 5. 
and was cavalier about not wanting to learn 
from those who had come before. 
In the process of digging the rose that morn- 
ing in May 1980, I was horrified when it split in 
two. But, this became an opportunity. I carried 
the little plants across the two blocks to the 
Beehive House, where I was the summer gar- 
dener and weed-puller. I planted them on either 
side of a path that led to a gate in the cobble- 
stone wall. Brigham Young had built the wall in 
the 1850s around his two side-by-side homes, 
the Beehive House and the Lion House. The 
roses flourished there for two decades, until 
the cobblestone wall suddenly collapsed, killing 
one of the pair. The other was moved to another 
part of the Beehive House garden while the wall 
was being rebuilt and was never moved back. 
I was concerned for the future of the Nauvoo 
rose because it was difficult to find anyone in 
the next generation who was interested, but I 
eventually took three cuttings and have grown 
them in my home garden for the past decade. 
din 1870, the Nauvoo rose h 
Hv ge ee = 
PHOTO BY THE AUTHOR; MAP FROM LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION 
I once keyed out the Nauvoo rose and believe 
it is a Rosa chinensis ‘Minima’, a variety (for- 
merly known as Rosa indica minima) intro- 
duced into cultivation in the early 1800s. It 
grows about two feet high and two feet wide, 
and it blooms from spring to fall. In the intense 
high-desert sunlight of Utah, it prefers grow- 
ing in a bit of shade. Compared to other roses, 
the Nauvoo rose may not seem very glamor- 
ous. Elizabeth, however, had the imagination 
to envision her little plant blooming in her 
new home in the Great Basin. Her descendants 
who donated the rose and the line of gardeners 
who cared for it since have all been connected 
by the love, care, and determination required 
to let it grow. 
Esther Truitt Henrichsen is the garden designer at 
Thanksgiving Point Institute in Lehi, Utah. Previously, 
after completing a master’s in landscape history, 
she worked for many years as a landscape designer 
at Temple Square. 
