She doesn't know any of the official names of the 60-plus varieties blossoming at the Raleigh Municipal Rose Garden -- though she is quite partial to the pink ones. What she is sure of is that this tranquil spot "is a little slice of heaven on Earth."

The Rose Garden, tucked behind the Raleigh Little Theatre on Pogue Street, has been one of Carlson's favorite spots since she and her husband transplanted themselves here 14 years ago.

"I grew up in Queens, New York," said the 47-year-old Raleigh homemaker, "and we never had anything like this."

She said the garden epitomizes the trade-off she made in that move -- giving up tall buildings for towering trees, concrete sidewalks for grass lawns and the blare of car horns for the songs of flitting birds.

Carlson discovered the Rose Garden a decade ago when her older daughter, Caroline, now 12, was just a toddler. The photographer she hired to take a portrait suggested they take it there.

"I instantly fell in love with it," she recalled. "It is so quiet and peaceful, there's almost never a crowd, and the colors of all the different flowers are breathtaking. It's a chance to get away from it all in the middle of town."

Since that first shoot, picture-taking at the Rose Garden has become a family tradition.

"About six or seven years ago we started to bring Caroline and Natalie out here every year during spring break," she said. The family charts the growth of Caroline and Natalie, 10, through the annual photos taken in the maw of a tall China fir.

"It's getting a little hard for us to fit in there now," Caroline added before happily squeezing herself into the gap to re-create the shot.

While the Carlsons love the Rose Garden, they were unfamiliar with its fascinating story.

A brief history compiled by Lisa Wallace of the Raleigh Parks Department notes that the 6.5-acre tract was part of the old State Fairgrounds from 1873 until 1925. After a two-year break, the Fair resumed at its current location. For a brief period during World War I, the land was transformed into Camp Polk, housing soldiers, tanks and other military equipment.

A subdivision called Fairmont was proposed for the area. But in 1926, the city purchased the tract that would become the Rose Garden. As houses sprouted around it, the property languished, becoming known by locals as the "ole mud hole."

Everything changes

Wallace notes that this changed in 1938 when Cantey Venable Sutton -- an amateur actress, singer and pianist and the wife of CP&L's top executive Louis V. Sutton -- helped lead the drive to find a permanent home for the Raleigh Little Theatre.

At the time, Wallace writes, the theater company was "rehearsing on the third floor of the Briggs Hardware building on Fayetteville Street and performing at Broughton High School."

Sutton, along with playwright Ann Bridges, theater director Heath Long and Mayor George Iseley secured federal money through the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration to build the present indoor theater and outdoor amphitheater.

After the theater opened in 1940, Wallace writes, Sutton "threw herself into the development of the grounds" that would become the Rose Garden. The first rose bushes were planted in 1948; the fountain was constructed in 1949 and the garden shelter was added in 1952.

Sutton and the Raleigh Rose Society then worked to maintain the city's commitment to this idyllic preserve. Their efforts paid off in 1955 when Raleigh hired the English rosarian Edward Anderson to maintain it.

Today, the garden boasts 60 beds in a horseshoe pattern; its nearly 1,400 bushes make it the largest rose garden in the state. It includes antique roses, miniatures and English roses as well as other shrubs and perennials, framed by specimen trees including China fir, Dawn redwood, Boulevard Cypress and Incense Cedar.

For Celesta Carlson, that history comes alive every time she and her family soak up the peaceful beauty of this favorite spot. On a recent Saturday, she dipped her face into a fragrant pink blossom and then waved her daughters on over.

"It smells like Windex," said Caroline.

Nicole agreed with her big sis. Then, sensing her mother's surprise, she added, "In a good way."

Carlson shrugged in a motion that said kids will be kids, looked around and smiled peacefully.

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