The city of Portland, Oregon is ideal for growing roses outdoors due to its location within the marine west coast climate region, its warm, dry summers and rainy but mild winters, and its heavy clay soils. Portland has been known as the City of Roses, or Rose City, since 1888, after Madame Caroline Testout, a large pink variety of hybrid tea rose bred in France, was introduced to the city. Thousands of rose bushes were planted, eventually lining of Portland's streets in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in 1905. The Rose City Park neighborhood in northeast Portland was formed in 1907, the same year of the first annual Portland Rose Festival. During World War I, nursery owners in Portland began planning a large rose garden to protect European rose species from the war. The garden was established in Washington Park as the International Rose Test Garden in 1917. Today, the Portland Rose Festival takes place each June with a carnival, parades, and navy ships docked along the Tom McCall Waterfront Park to promote the city. The International Rose Test Garden is currently one of the oldest public rose test gardens in the United States, covering with over 8,000 rose plants, and more than 550 different species. In 2003, Portland adopted the "City of Roses" as its official nickname. History In 1888, Georgiana Burton Pittock, the wife of Oregon newspaper publisher and business tycoon Henry Pittock, invited friends and neighbors to display their roses in a tent set up in her garden in the area now known as Pittock Block. In 1889, lawyer and civic leader Frederick Van Voorhies Holman helped found the Portland Rose Society. The rose cultivar Mme. Caroline Testout, a hybrid tea rose variety named after a French dressmaker, was introduced by French rosarian Joseph Pernet-Ducher in 1890. The cultivar gained popularity, and by 1905 Portland had of rose-bordered streets, with about half-a-million rose bushes planted, attracting visitors to the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. In 1915, rose hobbyist and Oregon Journal editor Jesse Currey convinced city officials to establish a rose test garden to protect hybrid roses grown in Europe during World War I. Portland's Park Bureau approved the idea in 1917, allowing rose enthusiasts in England to send roses to Portland for preservation. City landscape architect Florence Holmes Gerke began designing the International Rose Test Garden and accompanying amphitheatre in 1921. The garden