The Rogerson Clematis Collection Botanical Garden soon will be more beautiful and more accessible to disabled users, thanks to a grant from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust-USA. The $10,000 award, announced today, will pay for construction of several hundred feet of pathways, which will be built to the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Grant funds also will pay for companion plants, trellises and benches at the garden, which is located at Luscher Farm, a park owned by the City of Lake Oswego, Ore.

All of these new features will be added in 2012. They will be part of the garden’s Orchard Garden, which showcases plants suitable for beginning clematis gardeners; hybrid clematis from the Baltic region that were developed during the cold war; the Founder’s Garden; and a living archive of clematis bred in Poland. The garden’s entire collection includes more than 1,500 plants, including 1,000 clematis plants.

The Rogerson Clematis Garden, along with the whole of Luscher Farm, is open daily during daylight hours. The Rogerson garden is run by Friends of the Rogerson Clematis Collection. For more information, or to join or volunteer, log on to www.rogersonclematiscollection.org/