News

Last-minute stay of execution for the Robinson-Lowery Collection

In early December 2011, Gregg Lowery was given 17 days' notice of foreclosure auction of the land on which he and Phillip Lowery had amassed what must be the most significant collection of heritage roses in a private garden, anywhere in the world. Many of their roses are not obtainable from other sources.

The financial situation in the US had reduced rose sales from Vintage Gardens so much, that the collection could not be maintained adequately. However, assistance from donors and a helpful lawyer persuaded the bank to call off the auction, the day before it was due to happen. Now donors are being sought for a not-for-profit organisation to preserve the Robinson-Lowery (or Lowery-Robinson) collection, both in the current garden and via replicating 2300-2500 roses into tubs to allow transfer to other sites. 

The Heritage Rose Foundation is collecting funds: see  http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=suzm4ocab&v=001qSI1yol4mYt9NA-uInmOYPbY_UgBD-a-nYoWF2FLNuYHyEMZ-Fu_Cz8BSyRRi95b9AfjxEzQao6vR_o9Dqg7NvFmsJYLBe7au9MBgV7PpMI5FlSsXFBKAw%3D%3D or http://www.heritagerosefoundation.org/onlinecommerce/onlinecommerce.htm#FoVR or www.vintagegardens.com  if you want to assist.

 Gregg & Phillip were keynote speakers at the HRIAI Conference in Busselton, WA in 2006.

Myrtle Rust

Myrtle Rust is a recently-described fungus affecting Myrtaceae, which includes Eucalypts and Callistemons. It is present in SE Queensland and extending down the NSW seaboard. There is no known means of eradicating it at present. It produces bright-yellow lumps on plants, and is spread by spores. Its impact is potentially devastating to the Bush.

As a result, quarantine restrictions on travel of plant material and soil have been tightened (and rightly so - green snails, fire ants and cane toads haven't been stopped in their spread).

Please check with AQIS before you consider sending or transporting any plant material .

Source and More Information - http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/biosecurity/plant/myrtle-rust

Wallcliffe House, WA, gutted by bushfire

Our thoughts are with those affected by recent fires or flood. Those who were at the Busselton conference will be sad to hear that Wallcliffe House, visited during the conference, was gutted by the Margaret River fires.

You may remember that a large and lovely single flame-coloured rose in its garden provoked considerable discussion about a possible ID.

Sydney Morning Herald

The heritage-listed homestead of leading Australian businessman, Michael Chaney, was among 30 homes destroyed in the Margaret River fire.

Chaney is the chairman of the National Australia Bank and Woodside, he is also the son of Menzies government minister Fred Chaney.

Historic Wallcliffe House, which stood on the banks of the Margaret River, was gutted by fire after flames escaped from a prescribed burn on Wednesday.

Wallcliffe House was an important example of early colonial architecture and home to one of WA's finest collections of antique furniture said Chaney. "It's completely devastated," he said.

It is rumoured that Chaney paid about $4 million for the property in 2001. Since then he and his wife have spent a substantial amount of time and money restoring the home.

The two-storey limestone homestead in Prevelly, Western Australia, is now little more than crumbled walls and rubble reported the Sun Shine Coast Daily.

Ms Hutchinson, whose great, great, great grandfather Alfred Bussell built Wallcliffe House, spoke to the Sun Shine Coast Daily. She said that "the loss of Wallcliffe is devastating for our family obviously, but an enormous loss for Australia too".

Hutchinson said that Wallcliffe had provided her with an idyllic childhood. She told the Sun Shine Coast Daily that she didn't think that the property could ever be rebuilt in a way that could do justice to its long history.

The homestead was originally built by Bussell, one of WA's pioneer, between 1855 and 1865 and was designed in the Victorian Georgian style.

The house was built from limestone, quarried on the property and incoporated shingle and corrugated iron, as well as pit-sawn jarrah.

The property was the home of heroic Grace Bussell. In 1876, the 16 year-old famously rode her horse into surf at the nearby Prevelly Beach and helped save the lives of around 50 people as the SS Georgette sunk off nearby Calgardup Bay.

The Heritage Council of Western Australia described Wallcliffe House, before its destruction, as "an excellent and well-crafted example of a Victorian Georgian homestead.

Its design represents the aspiration of many early colonists to emulate a British country gentleman's residence. It is rare as a two-storey residence of this type constructed in stone".

All that's old is new again

THE roses at Flemington are treated with tender loving care to ensure they are at their floriferous best for the annual Melbourne Cup carnival. But the lifespan of many of these modern hybrids creating bountiful blooms is only about 12 years. When they are past their use-by date, they are replaced with another variety to start the cycle again for the next spring racing season.

In the real world, heritage roses endure with what they're given. Tea roses, especially, have a strong survival instinct, many of them thriving in cemeteries in front of headstones planted by grieving relatives.

In the Coburg cemetery, a pale pink tea rose with a yellow centre has been growing in front of a grave - where a husband and wife are buried, one in 1914, the other three years later - for nearly 100 years. The trunk is thick and gnarled and the rose stem about nine metres, which produces masses of blooms each year.

Geoff Crowhurst, co-ordinator of the Greater Melbourne group of Heritage Roses in Australia, treats it like a special friend and visits often to check on its welfare. He says it's amazing how well it's done over the years with no special treatment.

''I sent a cutting-grown plant to South Australia, where it is now being grown at Ruston's Roses at Renmark and old rose experts there will try to identify which tea rose it is, if they can.''

He visits other cemeteries seeking similar old roses and also arranges to have them identified.

''I've been going around cemeteries for years as that's where you find lots of old roses. I'm like a rose sleuth with a bag and a pair of secateurs to see what I can find. In recent years, though, they're dying out, especially if there's a cemetery trust, because they clear up the area using Roundup, which kills everything and they wouldn't know an old rose from anything.''

Crowhurst says the passion for old or heritage roses is increasing as modern hybrids lose favour.

''People are tiring of the modern varieties and also they want to show the old roses, and the modern hybrid teas are stiff in growth habit and need looking after too much.''

The Australian heritage rose association started in 1979 with the aim of advancing the preservation, cultivation, distribution and study of old garden roses no longer in general commercial cultivation, roses of historical importance and species roses and their hybrids.

It also brought together people who loved and collected old roses and survivors from Australian colonial gardens.

''There's been a long struggle to identify the old roses as many of them were around before colour photography, so we look for characteristics such as buds and prickles to identify them accurately,'' Crowhurst says.

Old garden roses include those belonging to any of the classes that existed before 1867, when the first hybrid tea rose, 'La France', was introduced.

Tea roses are making a comeback. Descended from Chinese-garden hybrids and introduced to Europe in the 19th century, they bloom continuously in favourable conditions. Rosarian Diana Fickling fell in love with heritage roses after seeing a photograph of the highly fragrant, summer-flowering centifolia rose, 'Fantin-Latour'.

Eventually, her garden was a walk through the history of the Rosa genus, with more than 200 varieties, including Gallicas, Bourbons, Albas, Hybrid Musks, Portland, China, Alister Clark varieties (named after the Australian breeder of the early 1900s) and David Austin English roses.

Fickling shared her garden with like-minded rosarians by having open days but now she's moved on so it's up to others to inspire people about the beauty of heritage roses.

The Rose Maze

The Kodja Place Visitor Centre Kojonup, Western Australia Intended to be a ‘story about life’, the Rose Maze weaves together the stories of three women: Yoondi, the Noongar woman, Elizabeth, an Englishwoman, and the Italian woman Maria.

Through letters, a journal and personal dialogues these women impart a powerful personal message of the trials and hardships of rural life in the early 20th century, stories of hardship, loneliness and isolation. Their stories are expressed throughout the maze in plaques, and mosaics.

Abundant roses frame a maze of complex paths that lead us to striking pergolas ranging from old sheep yards to the mission brown 1970s pergola, the Woodhenge to the ‘deaths in custody’ pergola. The maze is linked to the building itself and the interpretive displays inside.

More than a hundred species of heat-loving roses bred for Australian conditions feature in the maze, many rare heritage species. The roses grow in hedges up to 2 metres high, and the colours have been chosen to sit naturally amongst the remnant native trees of the townscape.

Complex, multi-layered and entertaining, the Rose Maze provides a contemplative and illuminating diversion, accessible at a number of levels, by all ages and designed for people with a range of interests, from historians to gardeners.