Conservationists nurture Rookwood Cemetery heritage rose gardens for community to experience

The heritage rose gardens in Sydney's heritage-listed Rookwood Cemetery are being conserved by a dedicated group of rose enthusiasts from the Heritage Roses in Australia for the benefit of the community.

Rookwood General Cemetery Director of Marketing and Client Services, Crystal Lindsay advises “Rookwood General Cemetery is proud to be the home of so many unique and treasured roses. Our maintenance teams work hard to keep the cemetery grounds remarkable and we truly appreciate the expertise shared by the volunteers of the Heritage Roses in Australia Inc. This partnership is a wonderful example of our work to promote the significant legacy of Rookwood for the entire community to enjoy.”

For rose enthusiasts, Rookwood Cemetery, located in the western Sydney of Rookwood, offers a place to discover an abundance of unique species. This includes many rose varieties that have been propagated from the old graves in Rookwood that have never been officially identified and therefore classified as “found roses”, named after the grave where they had been originally planted.

Since 1867, when Rookwood Cemetery was first established, families have been planting roses by the graves of their loved ones. Over the years, these historic roses have acclimatised to the cemetery’s naturally dry conditions and continue to flourish year after year.

The conservationist group carefully identify, catalogue, propagate and re-plant each rose species into dedicated areas where they are left to thrive of their own free will, watered only when it rains, never sprayed and fed every few years.

The initiative was led by Barbara May, an expert propagator who, before her death in 2015, dedicated 30 years of her life to collating the roses in the Rookwood Heritage Rose Garden, which was renamed 'Barbara’s Garden' in her honour. The work of Barbara May continues today by members of Heritage Roses in Australia and Rookwood Cemetery under the guidance of Sydney group coordinator Glennis Clark.

Clark advises “Rookwood is the perfect environment for rose cultivation as the clay-based soil helps to retain moisture and nutrients,” commented Glennis Clark, Sydney group coordinator of Heritage Roses in Australia.

Rookwood’s heritage roses thrive with sporadic feeding every two years. Winter is an ideal time to plant roses as they are dormant and this will allow them to settle into position ahead of spring blooms and the heat of the Sydney summer.

Many of the most successful species that bloom abundantly are old tea roses, however some varieties have cross-propagated, creating new breeds that have acclimatised to suit the cemetery’s environment.

Clark notes “Tea and china roses can flower all year round however, October through to November is the best time to visit Rookwood as this is when all of the varieties are in full bloom.”

Rookwood General Cemetery Director of Marketing & Client Services, Crystal Lindsay adds “Rookwood General Cemetery is proud to be the home of so many unique and treasured roses. Our maintenance teams work hard to keep the cemetery grounds remarkable and we truly appreciate the expertise shared by the volunteers of the Heritage Roses in Australia Inc. This partnership is a wonderful example of our work to promote the significant legacy of Rookwood for the entire community to enjoy.”

Some of the heritage roses which do particularly well at Rookwood include:

• Agnes Smith, a delicate pink tea rose not officially identified and named for the grave on which it was found.

• Mrs Dudley Cross, a tea rose bred in the UK in 1907 featuring fragrant pink and lemon blooms on almost thornless stems.

• Monsieur Tillier, was bred in France in 1891 and is a statuesque tea rose with blooms that have crimson and russet shades. This rose is revered by rosarians around the world who voted it as the #1 tea rose in 2010.

• Crepuscule, a noisette climber that was bred in France in 1904. It has apricot to copper tones and flowers almost continuously from September until May.

• Comtesse de Labarthe (widely known and usually sold in nurseries as Duchesse de Brabant), a pure pink cupped bloom with a strong fragrance that grows to a vigorous 1.5 metres and flowers almost all year round. This tea rose was bred in France in 1857, is still commercially available and very popular in Sydney gardens.

• Rosa Chinensis Mutabilis, an old Chinese garden hybrid named for the way the flowers spectacularly change their colour from honey to coppery pink, to crimson. The rose was introduced to Europe pre-1894 but is of course a lot older.

• Rookwood’s Sanguinea – or Bengal Crimson, a rare China rose pre-1824 which flowers nearly all year round at Rookwood. The flowers are a single five petal bloom and blood red in colour.

Image courtesy of Rookwood General Cemetery.