The Tyler Rose Garden has won the Locals Love Us award for top tourist attraction for the 10th consecutive year.

The Tyler Rose Garden has won the Locals Love Us award for top tourist attraction for the 10th consecutive year.

“Every time we get a recognition like that, it’s exciting for us because there’s so much that goes into the rose garden,” said Jose Parga, Tyler parks manager, who has been working at the rose garden for about nine years.

The garden at 420 Rose Park Drive sits on 14 acres and is home to 35,000 rose bushes and more than 500 varieties of roses, according to the city of Tyler.

Parga said the garden is a part of Tyler’s history, and he is excited about the award.

Four full-time employees care for the rose garden, he said. Throughout the year, the roses are cared for and new ones planted.

“The rose garden is really important to the citizens of Tyler,” he said. “When they first built the rose garden, it really represented the rose growing industry. It was really heavy at that time.”

Since the rose garden’s official opening in 1952, it has moved away from the rose growing industry, but a lot of rose processing still happens in Tyler, Parga said.

Not only is the Tyler Rose Garden special because of its connection to the rose industry but also because of the trials performed there before the plants go to the market, he said.

Breeders send roses all over the United States to test them in different climates, and Tyler’s garden is one location where the trial roses are sent and tested for two years, he said.

“I think it’s important because they go to our rose garden before they actually get put out on the market,” he said. “To me, that adds a little bit of something special to our roses.”

People from all over the world visit the rose garden, making it Tyler’s biggest tourist attraction, Parga said.

The best time to see the roses is when they are in bloom during mid-April and mid-October, he added.

The rose garden is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.