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How did this happen? How in the hell did we end up with 30 roses/28 varieties… it’s been long on my to-do list to map the roses in our garden. Which I finally completed earlier this week. Then I asked the G.O. how many roses he thought we had. His answer. About 15. All I can say is, it’s a slippery slope from 4 roses to 30.

Our house originally had one rose bush located near the front steps. A Mr Lincoln planted in the late 1960’s, by Ollie & Vince, first owners of our house from the late 1930’s through to Ollie’s death in 1980. A while back, one Sunday afternoon we noticed two ladies lingering at our front gate. When I ventured down to enquire if I could assist, they said they were chatting to the dog… and they used to live in this house.

At last! I have been waiting for someone from the original family to visit. Margey the youngest daughter of Ollie and Vince, and her niece Margy, a granddaughter of Ollie and Vince. They remarked their family also had had a black dog at this house: it must have seemed extraordinary to wander by and see our black dog in situ!

Of course, I invited Margey and Margy in for a look around. I’ve been fortunate to encounter such hospitality from subsequent owners of my grandparents’ farm through the years so it’s only natural I was thrilled to extend the courtesy. In return they shared snippets of information… Ollie was steadfastly religious and on Sunday mornings after church held just up the hill, catered a generous home-baked morning tea primarily for the priest but with sufficient for nuns, congregation and family. Ollie loved flowers, particularly roses although the garden of her time was fairly prosaic, notably comprising tough, vividly coloured bougainvillea and border of impatiens cuttings, until later years the singular aforementioned Mr Lincoln. Having reared numerous children and grandchildren in the house over the years I doubt Ollie had much spare time or money for gardening. Nevertheless, Margey pointed out her mother had had a vegetable plot in the back corner where my caged edibles garden is now located.

All the more intriguing despite not being particularly enamoured of roses, since my mid-twenties I’d been collecting vintage homewares and floral pictures, particularly roses. After we bought this house, the leitmotif tended to religious subject matter; often turning up with an accompanying sense of synchronicity. Ollie and I have history. You can read that story here.

My grandparents’ farmhouse flower garden of the late 1960’s early 1970’s included multi-hued gladioli and white cape daisies, which I love to this day along with the snapdragons and sweet peas of my great-grandmother’s garden in town. Other than one brief exception at the new build house where we lived during my teenage years, there weren’t roses in the gardens of my childhood. Brief… because Dad and his best mate returning home one evening after a long session at the pub rather than taking the usual direct path flattened the breadth of the front garden bed as they rolled inebriated across the lawn, the recently planted roses between them and their intended destination of the front door.

However, both lots of the G.O.’s grandparents were accomplished rose growers and the G.O. inherited the knack along with know-how from his younger days working as a groundskeeper.

And so, the second rose in our garden was a cutting from the first Mr Lincoln which the G.O. propagated c. 2002 and planted in the centre of the front garden shortly after he purchased the house.

Around the same time the G.O. planted rose number three under the living room window. With champagne blooms it was an attractive but not very robust rose and after a few years of being quite untended in our absence it reverted to rootstock throwing out long canes and distinctive dark red flowers identifying it as Dr. Huey.

Rose number four was one of those good ideas at the time after a vacation visit to a local historic tourist attraction where the thing that impressed me most was a beautiful yellow rose rambling over an archway, which I thought would suit our backyard. That we weren’t living here nor had an archway didn’t deter me. For a few dollars from a roadside stall, I bought a tiny plant labelled simply yellow climbing rose, for want of an arch planted it along the side back fence in what was all those years ago an empty corner and hoped for the best.

Despite getting only sporadic attention, the little plant not only survived but grew rapidly, soon covering several metres of old wire mesh fence with fragrant, double, white, rosette like flowers. We now know it’s a Rosa banksiae Alba. Fortunately, white flowers of any kind are my favourite, and there would be time enough in the future for a yellow rose. If only I’d known…

Serendipitously more than decade later, number five, Graham Thomas a yellow climbing rose, came my way, a gift from one my Tafe horticulture teachers.

Rose number six, Slim Dusty was a nod to Australian cultural icon and local celebrity for who it is named [of whom the G.O. is a fan] famed for his song The Pub With No Beer, our local pub at Taylors Arm. Part of the proceeds from the sale of each rose is donated to the Slim Dusty Foundation.

Rose number seven, Cecile Brunner was a gift from my friend-cousin-in-law fellow gardener-horticulturalist who knew I’d love its small double pale pink flowers and classic rose fragrance.

Rose number eight was a self-propagated cutting from rose number three Dr Huey rootstock which popped up in just the right place.

Roses nine to thirty…

I got to thinking as I often do and thinking led to further clicking on the Treloar Roses website. More roses? Is it possible we needed more? Where would they go? As part of my permaculture design final plan, we’d expanded the narrow house-hugging front garden border into a deep paisley inspired curve with the intention of growing a mix of edible, useful and beautiful. Additional roses weren’t in the plan, but they are all of those things, technically. More importantly its westerly aspect is our most challenging space, and the durability of the existing roses suggested we could expect the same.

You might think 23 roses are quite the investment for something with limited guarantee. By buying bare rooted plants and later using reward points plus end of season discount offer, I spent a total of $535.60… $23.28/9 per plant including shipping to my door.

If you’ve been to a plant nursery-garden centre or florist recently you’ll recognise this is good value for plants which with reasonable care will live for decades providing never-ending bouquets of flowers.

Ollie my friend, you got your rose garden.

“Live now, believe me, wait not till tomorrow; Gather the roses of life today.” ~ Pierre de Ronsard

Roses purchased in 2021 and 2022 from Treloar Roses: descriptions derived from their website. Photos -with the exception of Moonlight which hasn’t yet flowered- are mine.

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