In the rose garden, 23 families of roses, arranged in 4 big rose windows inspired by the ones of the great Romanesque churches, recount the evolution of the rose, from the rosehip to the modern rose. An educational rose garden is disposed in a straight line for the children coming to visit the educational farm.

The idea of a historic rose garden came in a Pépinière in Watermael-Boitsfort in Brussels, where Nonno Bebe had traveled to with Adele to visit their 3 “Belgian” grandchildren.

Nonno Bebe found a book about roses, which he was always very fond of, which contained an official classification that allows to catalog roses in families and to collocate them on a time axis that starts in prehistoric times, even before the appearance of man, and continues until today.

Once back in Italy with his new book and his idea in mind, he began drawing, as the good engineer that he is, a Romanesque rosette, a memory of the cathedral of Modena, his hometown. The combination of roses and religion goes back to when as a child he joined the Jesuit Order, Marian devotees, for whom the rosette symbolizes a crown of roses dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. He draws one rosette for each historic group of families: the book counts 4 groups, which is exactly the number of the mysteries of the rosette. It all adds up!

Each rosette is then dedicated to a religious congregation, representing its emblem in the center with the same white stones that were used to trace on the grass the limits of the rosettes: in order, from left to right, Jesuit, Barnabite Fathers, Claretian and the sisters of Cormons, as a sign of respect and appreciation for the hospitality of these places.

Another element regarding the symbolism, 4 small lakes have been excavated south of the rose garden, with beautiful water lilies and plants that oxygenate the waters and some fish that eat all mosquitoes’ eggs, all this in the shadow of 4 groups of alder and the respective 4 areas with benches to rest and enjoy the view. The whole area of the rose garden and of the small lakes is fenced to avoid visits from uninvited hosts like wild boar or roe deer, and it is surrounded by hibiscus of 4 different colors (rose, violet, red and light blue) that run along 4 sides of the perimeter.

The straight-line rose garden offers for the children on educational visit the same families of roses present on the rosettes. It counts 4 lines of roses each one of which reproduces in a straight line the content of a rosette and allows to see up close all the characteristics of each plant and the differences of one from the other.