Their trees, flowers, and flowing water improve our health, ease our anxieties, and serve as the stage for family reunions, weddings, and just plain fun. Parks and green spaces also clean our air, cool our hot summer days, and provide refuge for birds and animals. Most importantly, parks are the places where distinctions of race and ethnicity, wealth and class, fall away and people come together as a community.
Mission Street Parks Conservancy exists to foster community. We believe public parks play a critical role in the health and happiness of our community, and we’re committed to preserving and caring for them today and for the future. If you enjoy our parks, please support our work by becoming a member today.
An map highlighting the numerous amenities of Bush’s Pasture Park, including playgrounds, museum, art gallery, rose garden, sports venues, picnic areas and more.
May through September, Bush’s Pasture Park Rose Garden is alive with blooms from over 100 modern and old rose cultivars. Over 2,000 individual rose plants are distributed among the garden’s 105 beds.
Mission Street Parks Conservancy is excited to announce our annual Art Fair Plant Sale in conjunction with the Salem Art Fair at Bush’s Pasture Park! Friday, September 13, 2024: 10am – 7pm Saturday, September 14, 2024: 10am – 7pm Sunday,…
The woodland garden project at Bush’s Pasture Park took another step towards reality today when volunteers cut an opening through the hedge into the new garden space. Over the next 6 weeks, the City will level the uneven ground, grade…
The Tuesday Gardeners wasn’t the first volunteer group Anita Engberg joined when she moved to Salem in 2013. That was the Willamette Humane Society which she joined just days after moving here. It was 6 months later, in January of…
Bush’s Pasture Park has several playgrounds and picnic areas located near the Bush Barn and both upper and lower Leffelle Street parking lots.
The Upper and Lower Oak Groves create a cathedral of welcoming shade for picnicking, playing, or just sitting and ‘forest bathing’.
The upper and lower pastures of the original Bush farmstead remain as open lawn. Ideal places for a ball game, playing Frisbee, or just soaking up the sunshine.
The interior of the conservatory contains plants popular in Victorian glasshouses, and there are interpretive panels that bring the history of the structure ‘to life’.
The Hillside features about 130 varieties of species and hybrid rhododendron and azaleas, and well over 300 varieties of companion plants located on a 2½ acre east facing slope.
May through August, the Garden is alive with blooms from over 170 modern and old rose cultivars. Over 2,000 individual rose plants are distributed among the garden’s 105 beds.
Pringle Creek flows along the western edge of the park, through the shade of big-leaf maples and other native trees, shrubs and ground cover. A narrow meandering path accesses the creek.
The Bush House Museum, in Bush’s Pasture Park, is preserved and interpreted to illuminate the lives and legacy of Salem’s Bush Family, the early development of Salem and Oregon history and culture.
Camas (Camassia quamash) carpet the lower Oak Grove, while the great camas (Camassia leichtlinii) can be found in the Rhododendron Hillside and among other wildflowers on the slope.
GIS Map of Bush’s Pasture ParkThe Conservancy is starting to map the location on the park’s trees and woody shrubs, as well as the location and contents of mass planting beds. As we gather this data, the results are available through our interactive GIS map.
Plant DatabaseThe Conservancy is working to locate and catalogue all of the park’s trees, woody shrubs, and contents of mass planting beds. This allows the public to search the parks’ plant collections. Users can search our database by entering attributes such as common name, scientific name, cultivar, and plant habit.
Plant CollectionsThe park’s plant material is organized into several general and special collections. The Conservancy has developed descriptions and management policies for each collection.
