The Rose Garden of Mainz
A garden full of scents – and what better place to study aromas than here?
In the city park, just a short walk from the Rhine, lies the Rose Garden of Mainz — a space that has been blooming and fragrant for more than a century. From the beginning, it was never meant as a private retreat, but as a garden for everyone: a public place where beauty, craftsmanship, and the art of scent come together.
Today, more than two hundred varieties grow here: historic classics, delicate new cultivars, and roses named especially for the city of Mainz.
Because the Rose Garden is such a special place, its signature rose scent has earned a spot on our City Scent Map.
The Rose Garden as a Chemical Laboratory
What makes the fragrance of roses so special? Roses don’t simply “smell like rose” — their aroma is built from a complex blend of volatile molecules that together create a distinctive mood.
Every rose tells its own chemical story.
In the laboratory, we can make these stories visible. Over time, this becomes an expanding chemical portrait of the Rose Garden, growing with every blooming season and every new set of data we collect.
Image of the Rose Garden with our sampling
Caption: A garden for everyone. Between the scents of the city and the fresh Rhine breeze, the garden becomes a small laboratory of the senses: by revealing the chemical fingerprints of roses, we document not only molecules, but a piece of Mainz’s cultural history — something we can quite literally smell. (Picture: Dom Jack).
The Roses of Mainz – Our Local Protagonists
Mainzer Fastnacht
A bluish-violet rose, playful and full of contrast. Similar varieties often contain ionone compounds — molecules responsible for the characteristic violet note. We are still searching for a flowering specimen for our own measurements.
Goldenes Mainz
This yellow-blooming variety evokes warm, sunny days. Here, we expect higher proportions of ionones and damascenone — compounds that add fruitiness and depth. We are still looking for a specimen in full bloom.
Historic Varieties in the Park
The garden also hosts classic fragrance varieties — living examples that rose scent is not fixed but an evolving chemistry of plants. Their aromas range from intense, spicy notes to light, almost lemony nuances.
Its bright, fresh scent is captured as we unveil its unique chemical fingerprint.
Candela
Placed among the garden beds, Candela immediately catches the eye. Its pale yellow flowers glow warmly, and its scent is as clear as its appearance — fresh, subtle, and bright. Known for its resilience, it keeps flowering long after others have faded.
Candela is a “bright rose”: a clear, citrus-green top note with an elegant floral heart, without the heavier tones typical of Damascena or tea hybrids. more....
On the Trail of Scent
As you walk through the Rose Garden, the fragrance shifts with every step — a sensory version of what we measure in the lab: a changing mixture of hundreds of molecules — geraniol, citronellol, phenylethanol — each present in subtle variations. Temperature, sunlight, variety, even the time of day all influence the balance. Every lap around the park becomes a new experiment.
Through our contribution “Scent Incognita” in the Flora Incognita app, such subjective scent moments can be recorded. Each observation — a strong rose fragrance, a faint sweetness, or even the smell of damp leaves — helps create a shared scent map of our surroundings.
Bit by bit, a map of fragrances emerges — and the Rose Garden of Mainz becomes part of it.
Text: Alexandra Gutmann