Manito Park Arbor Will Give Roses A Place To Climb Funds For Pergola Willed By Erna Bert Nelson

Manito Park’s new rose arbor is 14 columns of board, brick and steel.

Not far from the arbor grows a rare ginkgo tree, a slender column of fan-shaped leaves.

Yet both the tree and the arbor spring from the same source.

The ginkgo tree once grew in Erna Bert Nelson’s South Hill garden, while the rose arbor was built with funds Nelson willed to the Spokane Park and Recreation Department.

Nelson, a longtime resident of Spokane and a professional photographer, died in 1993 at age 80. Her portraits of families, children and debutantes grace the homes of some of Spokane’s founding families.

Nelson had no heirs and left $700,000 to the Parks Department, said Judy Quinlivan, secretary of the Spokane Parks and Recreation Foundation.

Nelson also left the Parks Department her horticultural library and a living bounty of rare plants and trees, some of which were transplanted from her South Hill garden to Manito Park, including the rare Ginkgo tree.

The 80-foot-long arbor, built at a cost of $87,000, will someday be stitched with old-fashioned pink, white and red climbing roses. The arbor, also known as a pergola, is located a few feet north of the sundial on Manito Park’s Rose Hill.

Last Thursday, city and park officials dedicated the pergola to the memory of Erna Bert Nelson. It is the first project to be completed by the Parks Department using Nelson’s funds.

Other projects in the offing include a skateboard park and a study to determine the feasibility of an indoor aquatic center, Quinlivan said.

The 14-foot-tall rose arbor consists of 14 Tuscan columns built on basalt bases. The double colonnade supports two lattice canopies. Except for the wooden lattice work, the entire structure is reinforced with an internal steel structure, said contractor Mark Chilton.

The architect for the project, Jerry Shogan, said he was approached by Taylor Bressler, parks operations manager for the city Parks and Recreation Department.

“He (Taylor) came to me with an idea to bring back some of the garden structures that were once in Spokane, something you might have seen 70 or 80 years ago,” Shogan said.

When the roses are in bloom, the pergola will also provide the park area needed seating and shade, Bressler said.

Nelson’s longtime friend, Dorothy Darby Smith, told the more than 50 people assembled for last Thursday’s dedication that they should expect to see “beautiful climbing roses by next spring.”

“Oh, oh … pressure,” said Steve Smith, Rose Hill’s head gardener.

Smith said that it might take three or four years for the climbing roses to scale the 14-foot columns - if the winters cooperate.

“They should be fine, if it doesn’t hit 24 degrees below zero, like it did last year,” Smith said.

, DataTimes