While the overseas gardens mentioned may be a pipe dream and a wonderful form of armchair travel, it is more possible for us to visit some of our wonderful Australian gardens, so here is a collection of books about the development of some very special examples!
Books about Australian Gardens
Wychwood: The Making of One of the World’s Most Magical Gardens by Karen Hall and Peter Cooper 2014
A magical garden in my home state of Tasmania and a definite destination on our next visit! This gorgeous book describes the evolution of this incredible world-famous garden and nursery from bare paddock 25 years ago. In Part One, we follow the journey of English Karen Hall and Scandinavian Peter Cooper from their childhood years and early married life; relocation to Tasmania and purchase of an old farmhouse on 2.5 acres at Mole Creek, in the shadow of the Great Western Tiers in the north-west of the state in 1991. Part Two describes their first steps; their nursery years growing plants side-by-side with their young family; and the development of their iconic labyrinth and their orchard and kitchen garden, all with lots of practical advice and information from plant choice to the basics of espaliering; heritage apple varieties and cider-making; delicious recipes; garden art; and sharing Wychwood with the public. Part Three is the really valuable section, in which Karen and Peter have been so generous with their information and knowledge, gleaned over one quarter of a century in the garden. It includes The Twelve Golden Rules :
Know your climate and conditions;
Know your enemies;
Grow what you love;
Plant small;
Prepare well;
Consider your planting;
Embrace the seasons;
Keep it simple;
Mulch, water and the art of cutting back;
The gentle art of illusion;
Be practical;
Cut-grass edges and tools we couldn’t do without – the latter being a very useful section for us, as we had been trying to decide about garden edging!
The rules are followed by a large section on plants, including their favourite varieties and their benefits: trees; roses; shrubs; climbers; grasses; bulbs; and perennials, biennials and annuals, so useful for those of us with cool temperate gardens. Next is a section on seasonal chores and finally a list of all the plants in Wychwood’s garden. This is another one of those truly beautiful dreamy and inspirational garden books and Peter’s photographs are superb!
The House and Garden at Glenmore: Landscape, Memory, Seasons, Home by Mickey Robertson 2016
This lovely book was a birthday gift for my wonderful gardening husband on our visit to Mickey Robertson’s Spring Fair at Glenmore in Southern NSW last October. I have devoted an entire post about our visit to this inspirational and beautiful garden at : https://candeloblooms.com/2016/12/21/a-garden-weekend-in-the-southern-highlands-part-2/. The book is equally inspiring and well worth purchasing for its beautiful presentation; its wonderful descriptions and useful practical information; fabulous photographs, both of the house interiors and the garden; and its wealth of mouth-watering seasonal recipes in the back, many of which are made for the lucky participants in her workshop classes. She describes the history of the old house and its renovation in detail with lovely photos of all the rooms, as well as her gardening journey and the development of all the different areas of the garden, especially her great passion, the organic vegetable garden. She also has detailed notes about each season in the kitchen garden – what’s in season; what needs doing etc. Do try to attend an Open Day or Spring Fair one year, as it is so wonderful to see this garden in its Springtime peak, not to mention partake of all the delicious cakes! But in the mean time, enjoy this lovely generous book!
Two Dogs and a Garden by Derelie Cherry 2009
Bob and Derelie Cherry are camellia experts, who have a beautiful garden further north between Sydney and Newcastle at Paradise, Cherry Lane, Kulnurra . The 92 hectare property has a 35 hectare garden, of which 12 hectares is devoted to camellias. This is another garden I would love to have visited, but it is now closed, the last open day being in August 2013. Bob and Derelie are now retired, Bob having sold his nursery business ‘Paradise Plants’ to David Hanna in 2012. Bob is a well-known modern-day plant hunter and plant breeder, who has travelled extensively throughout the world. You can read more about him on: http://gardenclinic-secure.worldsecuresystems.com/how-to-grow-article/meet-bob-cherry-plant-hunter?pid=44202 and http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1705859.htm, but I think Derelie’s book is probably the ultimate source of information about this amazing man and his wonderful garden. Again, this is a book, which can be picked up and dipped into at any point with beautiful photographs and interesting snippets, which wander from the Cherrys’ favourite plants (camellias; hydrangeas; polyanthus; lavenders; sweet peas; stock; luculias and lilacs; fragrant gardenias, osmanthus and heliotrope; buddleias; wisteria; my favourite dianthus; Spring blossom trees and magnolias; rainforest plants; lotus, waterlilies and orchids; belladonna lilies and agapanthus; strelitzia and hibiscus; Autumn foliage; and a large section on roses, including a visit to Walter Duncan’s Heritage Garden at Clare, South Australia, and Roseraie du Val-de-Marne in Paris) to Bob’s follies (stone walls; paths; columns and pillars; and even a bandstand and a bridge); plant-collecting expeditions; the Australian bush; and life at Paradise with Bob; their two much-loved dogs, Trudi and Jessee, and the native wildlife. This book was very much a labour of love, which shines through on every page!
A Garden, A Pig and Me: A Year at Torryburn by Jenny Ferguson 1999
Torryburn is another very famous property, having been the childhood home of famous Australian poet, Dorothea Mackellar, who wrote ‘My Country’, more famously known as ‘I Love a Sunburnt Country’. Jenny Ferguson was the well-known cook of Sydney restaurant ‘You and Me’ in the 1980s (1978-1985), before buying an 800 acre property, which was running beef cattle and Arab horses at that time, in the Hunter Valley in 1989. She and her husband, Rob, immediately sold the hilly half of the property, set up a thoroughbred brood mare stud, renovated the 1881 Victorian Italianate homestead and then began to plant! The first section of the book describes the different areas of the garden, along with maps, while the majority of the book gives a month-by-month account of the development of the garden over the year. Very similar in style to Holly Kerr Forsyth (I discussed some of her books in my post: https://candeloblooms.com/2017/04/18/inspirational-and-dreamy-garden-books-part-one-inspiring-books-and-garden-travel-books/), this very readable book contains lots of delicious recipes and beautiful photographs throughout, as well as appendices of roses and other plants grown at Torryburn. And here’s the amazing thing, revealed only in the final chapter! Jenny commutes between Torryburn and Sydney and has done so for the previous 10 years, living half her week in each place. An amazing achievement! Since the book was published, Torryburn was sold to John Cornish and his family in 2002. It is still a thoroughbred stud. For more history on Torryburn, see: http://www.torryburnstud.com.au/torryburn-history.
Wheelbarrows, Chooks and Children: A Gardener’s Life by Margaret Simons 1999
Now for something totally different, a fun little down-to-earth book about gardening with a young family in the Blue Mountains and all the trials and tribulations! This book shares it all – the highs and the lows; the successes and failures; and above all, gardening in the real world, when there is never enough time to do everything as it should ideally be done and lots of interruptions and disruptions! I was given this book by my Mum when I was knee-deep in nappies with three kids under 4 years old and could totally identify with this book! The number of times during those early family years that we would restart the vegetable garden, only to have it disappear under Kikuya grass with the birth of the next child! This is a very amusing book and very heartening! I love her turn of phrase, from ‘I began my gardening career from a position of great ignorance, and I have not yet recovered ’ to her hatred of aphorisms like ‘you reap what you sow’, a phrase, which she sees as ‘absurdly obvious and very cruel’ and should be tempered by the word ‘sometimes’ and this is only in her introduction titled ‘How I Became a Not-a-Real Gardener’. She has lovely little passages on :
Daffy Daffodils; Babies and Chooks as Permaculture ; The Rooster and the Nasty Damp Patch; and Earth Motherdom amongst others in Spring;
The Bush Ablaze; A Gentle Evolution; the Luxury of Solitude; Goatishness; and Mud Pies in Summer;
Abundance; A Love of Parsnips (my husband’s favourite…NOT!; Winter Sulk; Wheelbarrows of Cement; Soggy Days and Snails; Worm Liberation; Domesticity; On Discovering That One Has Changed; and Chooks and Writing in Autumn and finishes with:
Winter’s offerings of A Time of Retreat; A Real Gardener; Mulching Out of Season; Ghosts in the Garden; Grunge and a Wet Weekend; Winter Magic and the Web; The Miracle of Cuttings; and A Chance of Life).
As I said, a very humorous easy read with some helpful bits of practical knowledge, thrown in for good measure!
Seasons by the Sea: A Coastal Garden in Australia by Paula Green 2001
Set on the South Gippsland coastline at Point Smythe, near Venus Bay, in Victoria, this lovely book describes the gardening journey of Paula Green and Terry Hoey, complete with all the challenges a coastal garden on a 7 hectare bush block presents. The writing style is totally different- very poetic and picturesque, her text immediately evoking images of the richness and enchantment of the natural world. Her short sentences make you feel like she is talking directly to you and her descriptions are breathtakingly beautiful. For example, her passage on the coming of Spring:
‘Spring whispers through a limping Winter on its last legs. It creeps up on me when I’m not looking. It comes like a kiss of life. Cold days are blown away by Spring’s warm breath. It’s been sleeping in my arms all Winter. It uncurls in the sun, yawns, stretches and rubs the sleep from green eyes. Cheeks flush. Its fresh face sparkles. Its heart rate quickens. Spring twitches with birth pangs. Wide awake, it takes my hand. Spring is stepping out in a new dress’
or Summer:
‘Summer enters without knocking. Flexes its muscles, elbows its way in and sends Spring packing. The season is a celebration of our own private Garden Fest. Bush Mardi Gras. We kick off our work boots and kick up our heels. We knock off early, roll up late or chuck it in all together. Seedlings sunbake and soak up a few rays. Vegetables swell. Fruits ripen. Seed heads snap, crackle and pop open’.
I could go on and on and on! She describes their owner-built mud-brick and stone house; their vegetable garden and orchard; the cottage garden, rose garden, yellow garden and native garden and their simple living philosophy and throughout the whole book, their great love of environment and the natural world. Included in the book are lovely recipes based on their home-grown produce; Terry’s beautiful simple sepia photographs and a plant list of common names and their scientific equivalent. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
This last title and general philosophy reminds me of Jackie French’s Seasons of Content, another book, which would have fitted into this section like a glove, but has already been described in my post on Books on Specific Types of Gardens: Part Two in the section on Jackie French books: https://candeloblooms.com/2017/03/23/books-on-specific-types-of-gardens-part-two-vegetable-gardens-sustainable-and-organic-gardens-and-dry-climate-gardens/.
Gardens of the Goldfields by Mandy Stroebel: A Central Victorian Sojourn 2010
Central Victoria is another very challenging climate for gardeners, and was particularly so over the years of the Millenium Drought, which finally broke on our arrival in Victoria in 2009. We had brought the Dorrigo rain with us! We spent six months in Castlemaine in 2010, the very year this book was published! I loved Castlemaine – its deep sense of history; the beautiful old buildings; the amazing gardens, despite its severe droughts and frosts and impoverished, depleted and eroded gold-worn soils; and the Mediterranean feel of the place from its native bushland to the delightful Greek refrain, which replaced the nearby school bell every hour. This book describes the gardens of the goldfields, from grand pastoral estates (Ercildoune, Burrumbeet; Plaistow, Joyce’s Creek; Tottington, near St Arnaud; and Wombat Park, Dayleford) to subsistence plots and productive paddocks (Tute’s Cottage, Castlemaine; the heritage apple orchards of Badger’s Keep, Chewton; and the Swiss- Italian lavender farm, Lavandula, at Shepherd’s Flat, which we visited twice); cottage pleasure and villa gardens (the cottage garden of Rosebank, Castlemaine; the pleasure gardens of Belmont, Beaufort; and the villa gardens of Fortuna Villa, Bendigo and that of the highly creative Leviny family at Buda, Castlemaine). It includes the beautiful old Botanic Gardens of Wombat Hill, Daylesford; Kyneton, Malmsbury, Castlemaine and Ballarat (for more on the latter, see: https://candeloblooms.com/2015/11/05/favourite-late-19th-century-gardens-in-australia/); the gardens of Rosalind Park, Bendigo and Queen Mary Gardens, St Arnaud, as well as the avenues of honour, planted to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the First World War. The history of local nurseries and early horticultural societies is also covered, as well as featuring current nurseries, all of which I have mentioned in previous posts: The Garden of St Erth, Blackwood and Lambley Nursery, Ascot (https://candeloblooms.com/2016/03/08/favourite-gardens-regularly-open-to-the-public-nursery-gardens-in-victoria/) and the Goldfields Revegetation Nursery, Mandurang (https://candeloblooms.com/2016/04/12/favourite-gardens-regularly-open-to-the-public-specialist-nurseries-and-gardens-in-victoria/). Mandy then focuses on gardening in the goldfields today, describing three gardens: Forest Hall, Castlemaine; the lovely Lixouri, Barker’s Creek (https://candeloblooms.com/2016/09/20/favourite-private-country-gardens-part-2/) and Sam Cox’s naturalistic environmentally integrated garden at Munro Court, Castlemaine, to illustrate fundamental design elements of goldfield gardens: the use of the borrowed landscape; built elements of local stone, gravel and hardwood for hard landscaping; decorative elements: wrought iron pergolas and gates, mosaics, pots and urns and sculptures, with a brief nod to our neighbours at Shades of Gray (https://candeloblooms.com/2016/06/14/favourite-gardens-regularly-open-to-the-public-sculpture-gardens/); and of course, the ever-important plants, which are tough and can tolerate both drought and severe frost. She includes protective measures to prevent frost damage and clues for appropriate plant selection, as well as contact details, including web sites in the back. A very useful book for goldfield gardeners or other areas with a similar climate, as well as very interesting from a historical perspective and armchair travel, not to mention actual visiting in person on open days!
Books about specific plants
Daffodil: Biography of a Flower by Helen O’Neill 2016
I have always loved daffodils, ever since I was a child in Tasmania, when their bright yellow trumpets would herald the beginning of Spring and the end of the long cold Winter! William Wordsworth’s poem ‘I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud’ is a special favourite and was one of the first poems I learned off by heart. We named our donkey Wordsworth, because he too wandered lonely as a cloud! I love the huge variety of form and colour in the daffodil world, especially the Poet’s Daffodil Narcissus poeticus, the beautifully-scented Paperwhite Zivas; the miniature Hoop Petticoats and the sterile Tête à Tête, as well as the double Acropolis and Wintersun varieties. Here is a photo of Narcissus poeticus:
Helen O’Neill also has a special personal connection to daffodils. Her mother painted them and there is one of her lovely pictures in the book. Daffodils also offered Helen great hope and brightened up some of her darkest days during her cancer treatment. I was also tickled pink to discover a connecting link between ourselves and the author through her mention of an old Armidale friend and author, Sophie Masson. The photo below is the Tête à Tête variety.
Daffodils have a fascinating history, covered in great depth in the book from their origin and the myth of Narcissus to daffodil collectors (daffodilians); the Daffodil King and his dark legacy; and the daffodil code. Despite their general toxicity, they have great medical potential, as they contain a number of different alkaloids like galantamine (slows the onset of early Alzheimer’s disease); lycorine (inhibition of ovarian cancer cell growth); narciclasine (treatment of primary brain cancers); and jonquilline (antiproliferative effects against a large range of different cancers), which is amazing, given the daffodil’s starring role in fundraising for cancer research on Daffodil Day! Daffodils are also used in the perfume industry and the cut flower trade, both of which are discussed at some length. Throughout the book, we learn about all the different species and hybrids. In the back is the Royal Horticultural Society Daffodil Classification Code, with its 13 divisions, a most welcome addition, given there are over 30 000 different cultivars bred by hybridizers and 36 species, as well as naturally occurring hybrids. The photo below is of the Acropolis daffodil.
The other special attribute of this book is its stunning photography and inclusion of some very beautiful romantic artworks. I particularly loved Daniel F Gerhartz’s Woman at Tea Time; Konan Tanigami’s daffodil woodblock print; Gustav Klimt’s Dancer 1916; Eugene Grasset’s Avril 1896; Burbidge’s Pictures of Narcissus poeticus 1875; Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s When Flowers Return 1911 and Frederick Richardson’s Daffy-Down-Dilly 1915. I even loved the William Morris-like daffodil frontispiece, designed by Hazel Lam of HarperCollins Design Studio – a lovely touch!
Tulipomania by Mike Dash 1999
Another fascinating and informative book about the history of the tulip. I loved this book – it was just so interesting! It tells the story of this amazing bulb from its origin in the valleys of the Tien Shan mountains; its spread westward to Persia and Turkey; and its steady ascent to prominence in the Netherlands during a period called Tulipomania (its peak being 1636 to 1637), when they were actually used as a form of currency and cost an enormous amount. One of the most celebrated tulip varieties, Semper Augustus, cost 5500 guilders per bulb in 1633, the value rising to 10 000 guilders per bulb in the first month of 1637! It was only affordable to a few dozen of the richest people in the whole of the Dutch Republic and was enough to feed, clothe and house an entire Dutch family for half a lifetime or to buy one of the grandest homes (with a coach house and 80 foot long garden) on the most fashionable canals in Amsterdam for cash during a time when real estate was very expensive.
While tulips were much loved during the early Ottoman empire, they experienced a resurgence in their popularity during the Tulip Era (1718 – 1730) during the reign of Ahmed III. He held tulip festivals over two successive evenings during the full moon in April, when the tulips were in full bloom. Guests wearing clothes, which harmonized with the flowers, would wander through the tulip beds illuminated by candles fixed to the backs of slow- moving tortoises. These were not the varieties favoured by the Dutch, but the slender, needle-pointed Istanbul tulips. I have always been entranced by this image! It was a riveting tale and I learnt so much about the history of Turkey and Holland through this wonderful book about the tulip!
For more about both daffodils and tulips, see my post on Spring bulbs at: https://candeloblooms.com/2016/09/06/spring-bulbs-in-my-cutting-garden-feature-plant-for-september/.
Seven Flowers and How They Shaped Our World by Jennifer Potter 2013
A fascinating book about seven much-loved flowers: the Lotus, the Lily, the Sunflower, the Opium Poppy, the Rose, the Tulip and the Orchid, but how does one choose just seven to discuss? For Jennifer, it was a choice based on flowers, which had some connection with her life, from the stylized, almost abstract, lotuses in a Tibetan monastery, which she used to visit as a teenager near Lockerbie in the Scottish borders to the tropical spider orchids from her childhood in Malaya, a very sound method of selection to my mind! The Rose is a definite for me and I would also agree with her inclusion of Lilies, Sunflowers, Poppies and Tulips, but Iris and Daffodils would probably replace the Orchids and Lotus for me with my Tasmanian childhood! But what about the wild escapee hydrangeas down by the creek; the Christmas roses (hellebores) down the garden walk; the fuchsia berries, which we’d used to rouge our cheeks and redden our lips and its flowers which look like dancing fairies; crab apple blossom and the succulent echeverias with their sweet coral and yellow bells in the rock garden? Or the sandalwood-scented Triunias and native frangipani of our rainforest block at Dorrigo; the agapanthus, violets, snowdrops, chaenomeles and camellias here at our Candelo garden and my favourite gardenias; jasmine and lily-of-the-valley or the snake’s head fritillaries and firewheel tree? Ross’s list also mirrors his Queensland country childhood : his uncle’s prize dahlias; heliotrope for Auntie Maud; stock and snapdragons; Iceland poppies; King Orchids from the cliffs and those beautiful subtropical trees: jacaranda; silky oak; flame tree and frangipani, which reminds him of seaside holidays at Burleigh.
Jennifer is an excellent researcher and her accounts of each plant’s history is so comprehensive and makes for fascinating reading. I never knew that in Ancient Greece, lily flowers were used to make perfume for men and were crushed and boiled in wine in early Christian monasteries as an antidote to snakebite, nor that the orchid kingdom was so huge! Apparently the orchid family, Orchidaceaea, is one of the largest plant families on earth with the greatest diversity of flora. There are 25 000 species of orchids in 850 genera (compared to the rose with 150 species, mostly in the one genus, Rosa), with 155 000 more hybrid orchid varieties, the number of new hybrids increasing at a rate of 250 to 350 per month and that was back when the book was published in March 2012! And, while some orchid species are disappearing due to over-collecting and habitat destruction, between 200 to 500 new species are identified each year! Orchids have the longest history of cultivation in China, dating back at least to the time of Confucius (551-479 BCE), with over 1000 species in over 150 genera. No wonder I was keen to know more! Which leads me to my final book for this very long post!
Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust and Lunacy by Eric Hansen 2001
Another very amusing book about orchids with a great title, a perfect finish for this post! But be warned! As commercial orchid grower, Joe Kunish, states in the introductory quotation: ‘You can get off alcohol, drugs, women, food, and cars, but once you’re hooked on orchids, you’re finished. You never get of orchids….never!’
I am not going to tell you too much about this book, but the chapter titles should give you a few clues. Some of the more extreme titles include: Journey To Fire Mountain; Bodice Rippers; The Wizard of Oz; Orchid Fever; The Fox Testicle Ice Cream of Kemal Kucukonderuzunkoluk; Au Yong and The Pollen Thief; Perfumed Legs at the Oyster Bar; The Orchid Raids; The Forbidden Flowers of Gunnar Seidenfaden; Orchids, Guns and Harpsichords; and Tom Nelson and The Bog Orchid Rescue. In his research for this book, Eric travelled to many exotic locations, including Penan long huts in the Borneo rainforest; a greenhouse with 420 tropical orchids in a Norwegian village just above the Arctic Circle and an Turkish icecream shop! He discovered some fascinating obscure plant trivia like the fact that one orchid, Orchis maculata, was used as an aphrodisiac in late medieval Iceland; the roots of the Malaysian orchid, Cymbidium finlaysonianum, could cure a sick elephant; a paste from the pulverized bulbs of certain species of Cyrtopodium was used as an adhesive by rural Guyanan shoemakers and the split pseudo bulbs of Coelogyne asperata were made into blackboard erasers by rural school teachers in Central Sumatran villages; as well as the more unsavoury side of the orchid industry. It’s certainly a dangerous world and makes for a fascinating read!
This is the final post on Garden Books. Next month, we will be exploring some of our favourite books on natural history, environment and sustainability, and the philosophy of Simple Living! Next week, we will be discussing another great Australian rosarian, Alister Clark, and the Alister Clark Memorial Rose Garden at Bulla, one of my favourite small gardens!
Ruston’s Roses
Since October 2005, it has been home to the National Rose Collection and also has a large collection of Tea Roses, perfectly suited to the warm dry climate of the Riverland region. The first two photos below show the native vegetation along the Murray River in this area and the 3rd photo was taken adjacent to Ruston’s Roses.
Renmark is situated on the Murray River and while much of the Mallee vegetation is scrubby and dry (see above photos), the abundance of irrigation from the Murray allows lush productive gardens, not just for roses, but also citrus, grapes and almonds.
Here is a map of the location of Ruston’s Roses taken from their official brochure:
David’s father, Cuthbert Sowersby Ruston, was a soldier-settler from England, who bought 30 acres of land in the Riverland with a friend in 1919 and proceeded to develop a commercial fruit orchard, which supported the two families.
In 1924, he planted roses around the family home, as well as Lombardy Poplars, Melias, a Norfolk Island Pine and a Lemon-Scented Gum, all of which still shade the house.
In the late 1920s, he planted more roses: Mme Jules Bouché, Lady Hillingdon (photo below), Rosa laevigata and Hybrid Tea, Constance, for David’s grandmother, Constance.
In all, his father grew 300 rose bushes, including many Teas: Devoniensis; General Gallieni; Hugo Roller; Lorraine Lee; Mrs B Cant; Mrs Herbert Stevens (photo below) and White Maman Cochet.
David was born in 1930. He worked on the family property and started to plant roses along the open irrigation channels, in fact anywhere he could find a spare bit of land!
Gradually, he removed vines, established trees as backdrops and windbreaks for the roses and planted more roses for the cut flower trade.
He started Ruston’s Roses in 1968. By the mid 1970s, the entire 11 ha had been converted to roses within a garden setting with large trees and shrubs and hundreds of iris (700 varieties from Bearded Iris to Louisiana Iris and the largest collection of Spuria irises in Australia), as well as daylilies, watsonias, criniums, agapanthus and clivias. 
The 1990s were a particularly busy time with the cut flower trade, but the drought and increased competition from West Africa and South America greatly affected the business at the time. Looking to retire, David sold the business to his niece and daughter of his twin brother, Anne Ruston, and her husband, Richard Fewster in 2003. They instigated a modernization program of the horticultural practices and in 2004, introduced a ‘No-Till’ regime, along with state-of-the-art computerised irrigation and fertigation systems to replace the prior flood irrigation. All pruning is now done by machine.
In 2005, the Ruston’s Roses Visitor Centre was opened and now caters for over 10 000 visitors from around the world each year!
It includes: A fully licensed café for morning and afternoon teas, lunches and dinners, and functions for up to 200 people, including weddings and conferences;
An information desk; a wonderful gift shop with lots of rose-related merchandise from books, beauty products and gifts (photo of the beautiful rose cake plate and cake fork set we bought from there) to local gourmet produce and arts and crafts like Dudley Siviour’s corrugated iron sculptures (last photo below of a kangaroo and sheep); 
Floristry and cut flowers for sale; and for the men:
Outside is a brightly painted Massey tractor (the first vehicle my husband ever drove at 8 years old, though his tractor certainly wasn’t as pretty!!!);
And some delightful rose-coloured glasses, through which to view the garden! This delightful artwork was made by Helen Burgemeister and is titled ‘Looking at the World Through Rose Coloured Glasses’. 
I loved the Climbing Graham Thomas (1st photo below on the left of the walk) and Troilus (2nd photo below) in the David Austin Walk, a tribute to the many David Austin Roses planted for their cut flower trade.
In fact, Ruston’s was the largest cut flower grower of David Austin Roses in Australia! Each year, the property supplies 50 000 dozen roses (600 000 stems) to florists in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane, as well as 400 000 buds of grafting wood to Australia’s nursery industry.
We had a wonderful day exploring all seven rose patches of the garden, as seen in the map above from the official brochure. We started at the old homestead, where David still lived when we visited in October 2014. I loved the entrance path!
Here, the garden is delightfully informal, blowsy and overgrown, with lots of colour and areas of sunshine and dappled shade.
I love the way he grew annuals in pots to provide instant mobile colour in bare patches.
The old packing shed beside the house was covered with a native frangipani in full bloom on the left and rampant honeysuckle on the right of the photo below.
We were able to get an excellent overview of the property by climbing the lookout tower.
There are six flushes of blooms each year, with a nine-month flowering season from early September to the following Winter. This lovely golden rose is the Polyantha Rose, Lavinia Evans.
It would be a beautiful venue for a wedding (1st photo below)! The beautiful metal sculpture near the wedding lawn in the 2nd photo below is titled ‘Lifeless Planets Surround Us. Let’s Not Make Earth Another One’ and was made by Tony Hanes.
I particularly loved the National Tea-Noisette-China Collection with lots of old favourites (like Noisette rose, Alister Stella Grey in the photo below) as well as many different types of Tea Roses, which were new to me.
Here is a list of the roses held in this section: 
The Renmark-Paringa Council has compiled a list of its 53 public rose gardens, which form the Renmark Rose Drive and Walk. Each bed is mainly planted with a single variety of rose, the name of which is noted, along with its family, in the brochure. The council maintains over 3500 rose bushes at a watering cost of $100 000, though recycled water is used for the majority of beds. The Renmark Rose Festival was the brainchild of Eithne Sidhu, who collaborated with David Ruston, to run the first Rose Week in 1994 to attract tourists to the region. They were certainly successful! Now in its 23rd year, it has become a major regional event in South Australia and the largest festival of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, attracting thousands of visitors and contributing significantly to the region’s economy. Held over 10 days in the 3rd week of October each year, it includes numerous activities in both Renmark and surrounding areas like Loxton. It is a very interesting area. Founded in 1887, Renmark is Australia’s first and oldest irrigation settlement, had the first houseboats on the Murray and the first community hotel in the British Commonwealth (The Renmark Hotel 1897), still operating as a community hotel today.
Festival activities include: tours of the historic Olivewood Homestead; river cruises on the Murray on the steamer PS Industry 1911 (photos below); a fair, market stalls and a ball; champagne breakfasts, suppers and high teas; visits to wineries and breweries; a scarecrow competition; a mystery bus tour; art trails, displays and workshops by local quilters, woodworkers and egg shell carvers; floral displays and flower arranging workshops and a lantern festival on Nardoo Lagoon at the end.
There are also a large number of private gardens, open to the public over the festival. We visited three wonderful gardens, all totally different! The first was owned by Donna and Danny Hoffman, who had a vast horticultural knowledge and a superb one acre formal garden over 20 years old.
He grew Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, Miniatures, David Austins and other old-fashioned roses, along with a wide variety of salvias, succulents, established trees and conifers.
I loved the driveway edged with mature climbing roses.
The next garden belonged to Alan and Fleur Carthew, who developed a one acre informal garden on a sand ridge bound by citrus and avocado trees (background of 1st photo).
The garden is 55 years old and has only had 2 gardeners. The Sprekelia (Jacobean Lilies) and Alstroemeria (Peruvian Lilies) at the front entrance were a picture (photo 1). I also loved the exuberant display of modern Shrub Rose, Sally Holmes, beside the white statue of the reflective girl.
It contains large established trees, an orchard, chooks, exotics and natives, including Kangaroo Paw (photo 1), Leucospermum (photo 2), Grevilleas (photo 4), Callistemon (also known as bottlebrush, surrounding the metal goat sculptures in the 3rd photo), Banksias, and many roses.
I have already discussed our final garden, Bed Rock, developed by Chris and Raelene Schultz on the site of the old drive-in in Loxton. See: 
2500 plants of twenty different varieties are grown on the property, their essential oil distilled and incorporated in a range of their own beauty products: soap, hand and body lotion, shower gel, shampoo and conditioner, floral water, massage oil, arthritis cream, insect repellent and lip balm, which are sold in the shop along with wheat-bags, sachets and other gifts like lavender mugs and china.
They have a fully licensed café, where we ate wood-fired pizza for lunch overlooking the farm. There is also mini-golf and a playground.
We drove down to the river, where Daisy Bates camped for four years from 1936 to 1940;
And we visited Wilabalangaloo, a lovely old property donated to National Trust as a Flora and Fauna Reserve by Janet A Reiners (1895 – 1990). Here is a map of its location from the official brochure and photos of the entrance and the old sandstone house with Aleppo Pines (Pinus halepensis) and Lemon-Scented Gums (Corymbia citriodora).
Wilabalangaloo Nature Reserve
Oxidation of iron over the centuries has produced the red, yellow and brown ochres, which give the property its aboriginal name Wilabalangaloo, meaning ‘Place of Red, Yellow and Brown Stones’. Its a perfect home for Welcome Swallows.
There is a self-guided interpretive nature trail and a clifftop viewing platform. See: 
There are over 80 indigenous plant species and a huge variety of wildlife, especially birds. We took lots of photos, including:
Zebra Finches, who were diving in and out of their huge nest;
Whistling Kites, soaring overhead, the air filled with their plaintive cry;
Rainbow Bee-Eaters, looking for insects;
Shelducks dabbling;
Pelicans cruising;
And Stumpy-Tails (also known as Shinglebacks or Two-Headed Lizards) sunbaking!
I just loved the colours of the vegetation and landscape: the reds and ochres; the blue-leafed mallee and old River Red Gums; the silvers of the saltbush and bluebush; and all the coloured lichens.
It is well worth a visit if you are in the area. Next week, we return to the last of the posts about garden books: Garden Books: Inspirational Gardens and Stories Part Three, after which the book posts will start exploring our natural history library.
I was nominated by Sophie, who writes a lovely blog: 
My Answers to Sophie’s Questions
Hybridization of these two roses with Dwarf Chinas, Bourbons and Noisettes produced a new race of Teas, with a wide colour range (red, pink, blush, white, yellow and pale orange) and a bud with a high pointed centre, different to other roses of the day. Crossing Parks’ Yellow Tea-Scented China with Fortune’s Double Yellow (R. odorata pseudoindica), another old Chinese garden rose with few thorns, dark green glossy foliage and loosely-formed double, buff-yellow fragrant blooms with tints of orange (photos below), produced the early yellow Teas of the 20th Century.
Originally called Tea-Scented Chinas, the name of these new roses was abbreviated to Tea Roses. There is much conjecture over the fragrance and origin of the name – some say these roses have the faint fragrance of fresh China tea, while others attribute the name to the fact that the roses were stored with the wooden tea containers during their voyage from China to Europe in the tea clippers of the East India Company. Despite their slender weak stalks and tenderness in the cooler climate, they quickly became popular with Victorians, who wore the blooms in their buttonholes. In cooler climates, most Teas were grown in greenhouses or against a warm, sheltered wall, but they thrived in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean areas; South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and warmer parts of America like California. Their heyday was from 1882 to 1910, with over 250 Tea Roses introduced between 1830 and 1840. Many were produced by French breeders like Gilbert Nabonnand (1829-1903), based at Golfe Juan on the Cote d’Azur, who specialized in breeding Chinas and Teas, producing 78 Teas between 1872 and 1903. Tea Roses remained popular through the Edwardian Era, but the outbreak of the First World War meant that there was no longer the time, money or staff to maintain these tender roses in heated glass-houses. The new Hybrid Teas, as well as climbers, ramblers and Polyanthas were gaining in popularity and competed for space in gardens. Sadly, most of the Tea varieties, known to the Victorians, are now extinct, many killed off by severe frosts in Britain.
While we are lucky to still be able to appreciate their nodding slightly fragrant blooms here in Australia, their big claim to fame in Europe is their major role in the development of the modern rose, being one of the parents (the other being Hybrid Perpetuals) of Hybrid Teas.
Large single primrose blooms 7 – 14 cm across, fading to white, in Summer.
Adam
Plentiful large dark green leaves and large, fully double, often quartered when fully open, blooms of buff, amber and apricot with pink tints deep in the centre.
I love the warm colours of this beautiful rose and am growing it on the northern end of the main pergola, where it flowers well throughout the season.
Safrano (Aimé Plantier)
Its high-centred buds open out flat to large, semi-double, fragrant, apricot-yellow to saffron blooms. Very floriferous, it has plentiful mid-green foliage and will grow to 2 metres tall in a warm climate.
Triomphe de Luxembourg 
Less than 1 metre tall, with dark green foliage and clusters of fully double salmon-pink blooms, fading to pinkish-buff with age.
Devoniensis (the Magnolia Rose)
One of my favourite Teas, I am growing it opposite Adam on the northern end of our main pergola. I first saw it over an arched pergola at Walter Duncan’s Heritage Garden, where its beautiful nodding heads were shown off to perfection.
Souvenir d’Un Ami
A vigorous bush with a branching habit, rich green foliage and fully double, cupped, very fragrant rose-pink and salmon blooms.
Duchesse de Brabant (also known as Comtesse de Labarthe; Comtesse Ouwaroff; and in Australia, Countess Bertha)
Very hardy and disease-resistant, it is one of the Earth-Kind Roses (see: 
Said to be a favourite of Teddy Roosevelt’s, it is certainly one of mine. I first grew it as a cutting, taken from an old garden belonging to Ross’s uncle, which has since formed part of the Gold Coast Botanical Gardens. I grew the climbing form in my old Armidale garden and now have the bush form here in Candelo, though it is still a bit of a weedy specimen and needs to pull it socks up!
Catherine Mermet
Marie Van Houtte
A vigorous plant with a sprawling habit, this rose has rich green foliage and is very free-flowering. Large pointed buds open out to very fragrant, cream nodding flowers, tinged with carmine pink, with a buff colour at the base of the petals. Will reach 2 metres on a warm wall.
Anna Oliver
A vigorous branching bush with good, mid-green foliage and shapely, high-centred, fragrant, flesh- pink blooms.
Mme Lombard
A vigorous bush with dark green foliage and very double, full, fragrant, salmon blooms.
A very useful rose, with compact well-foliated growth and very double copper-red and cherry-red blooms, which open out flat.
Mlle Franziska Krüger 
Monsieur Tillier
Tall, lax, vigorous growth with large, loosely-double, blood-red flowers with violet smudges and very little scent. Repeat-flowers well.
It repeat-flowers well, the colour of the blooms varying with temperature, the petals a mixture of pink, purple, orange and russet, with tints of yellow and gold in the centre.
My rose (above and below) was sold to me as Archiduc Joseph, but could well be Monsieur Tillier!
Here is a site exploring the differences: 
White Maman Cochet is a sport, bred by Cook, USA, 1896 (photo above). It has both bush and climbing forms and repeat-flowers well with creamy-white, fragrant, shapely, high-centred blooms, with a lemon centre and cherry-pink outer petals.
Very resistant to blackspot, it is also an Earth-Kind rose. See: 
Rosette Delizy
A branching bush, which has good foliage and repeat-flowers well with large full blooms of a lovely combination of rose-pink, buff and apricot and a fruity scent.
Will reach 1.8 metres on a wall.
Portlands
Their growth, stems and flowers tend to follow one or other of the parents:
Because of their ability to flower a second time, pruning became increasingly important. Side shoots should be pruned to three eyes and the strong main shoots reduced by a third. Aged and dead wood should be removed. Roses should be liberally mulched with manure and compost and rose fertiliser applied in Spring and after the first crop of flowers. Immediate deadheading is also important. Unfortunately, while their growth is robust, they have poor resistance to black spot.
At his Heritage Garden in Clare, rosarian Walter Duncan grows the climbing form over 20 decorative arches, 4 metres apart, forming a magnificent bridal tunnel in the Spring.
The foliage is modern in appearance, but the flowers are the Old rose type : large, 12 cm wide, cupped and quartered, blush-pink flowers, which open flat and pale slightly with age. They have a fragrance like a Tea rose.
They are reliable repeat-flowerers, but are susceptible to fungal attack and their blooms tend to ball and not open in the rain, so good air circulation is essential, as well as adequate water and fertilising to maintain optimal health.
For this reason, I have planted my climber in the middle of our main pergola, so a few balled flowers won’t ruin the overall display.
It is such a beautiful rose that this minor deficiency can be overlooked and I could not be without it!
Souvenir de St. Anne 1950
Its large 12 cm wide cupped deep fuchsia-pink and magenta blooms open out flat and quartered with a button eye, its petals fading and rolling back at the edges with age.
It flowers well into Autumn, which is when it often produces its best blooms.
It is a vigorous shrub, up to 2.5 metres high with long arching canes and large thick green foliage. I grew it along our front picket fence in Armidale.
Another rose I could not do without, I took a cutting from the old rose and now grow it on the shed fence here in Candelo!
La Reine Victoria J Schwartz France 1872
The medium chalice-shaped blooms are lilac-pink on the outside and paler within and have a good scent.
The petals incurve towards the centre, giving an enclosed effect.
The rose flowers repeatedly throughout Summer. Unfortunately, it does have a tendency to black spot.
Bourbon Queen (Queen of Bourbons and Reine des Iles Bourbon) Mauget France 1834
Variegata di Bologna A. Bonfiglioi Italy 1909
Paul Neyron Levet France 1869
Next week, I will be discussing Tea roses, another rose variety hailing from the Orient, which grows so well in our warmer Australian climate.
Autumn vies with Spring in my affections. The weather is much more stable, though is tempered by the knowledge of the impending Winter, only to be assuaged by the parade of brilliant deciduous colour, as each tree prepares for its Winter dormancy.
The verandah is such a vantage point, the backdrop changing daily.
The zinnias and dahlias lasted well into late May, having been touched up by a few early frosts, and Ross has finally put them to bed with a good layer of protective mulch.
The roses have taken centre stage again with a wonderful Autumn flush. These photos were all taken this Autumn. I have organised them into their separate beds:
We have just dug up either side of the shed garden path, so the shed roses are now in garden beds and we planted out many of the potted cuttings, which we took from my sister’s garden at Glenrock. All are doing well!
We also made two arches out of old gate weld mesh, one leading into the future chook yard and supporting Cornelia (photo 2) and Sombreuil (photo 3);
and the other on the corner of the shed, with Reve d’Or (photo 3) and Alister Stella Grey (photo 4) either side.
Ross defined the edges of the vegetable beds with old recycled fence palings and planted out young vegetable seedlings, which he then mulched. We are really enjoying their Winter crop in our salads at lunchtime.
From front to back in the photos below: red and green mignonette lettuce; spring onions; broccoli; spinach; cos lettuce and kale. 
We harvested the pumpkins, which again engulfed the compost heap, zinnia bed and maple tree, as well as the last of the tomatoes, making 3 bottles of green tomato chutney.
We also have plenty of late Autumn fruit, now that the bats have gone, though I suspect our citrus is fairly safe anyway! Unfortunately, the figs did not ripen in time, but the Golden Hornet crabapples have lasted well on the tree.
All the new citrus are growing madly and bearing fruit – the lime (photo 1) has a particularly fine crop and the lemonade (photo 2) is also bearing well.
The cumquats have been an absolute picture, both in full blossom and fruit.
We picked 6 Kg of fruit to make into cumquat marmalade and there was still fruit left!
The loquat trees were in full bloom for weeks,
attracting huge noisy parties of rainbow lorikeets,
which then went on to eat the Duranta berries, along with the Crimson Rosellas
and huge flocks of King Parrots.
Up until early May, we had even larger flocks of screeching Little Corellas in the thousands, gathering in the trees, recently vacated by the bats,
then flying off en masse right on dark to their roosting trees to the north,
occasionally accompanied by the odd Galah!
We have enjoyed flyovers by the local Gang-Gangs (photos below) and Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos. We even had a rare flypass by a Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo, en route to the local mountain forests. 
Other exciting glimpses included three Dollar Birds (photos 1 and 2) and a Figbird (photo 3), both Summer migrants, normally found further north.
Other larger birds in our garden at the moment include very quiet Australian Magpies (photo 6), a pair of courting Australian Ravens (photo 2), a Grey Butcherbird (photo 3), Pied Currawongs (photo 5), Spotted Turtle Doves (photo 4) and our Blackbirds (photo 1), which have been on holiday and have just returned.
And our littlies: the Eastern Spinebills (photos 1 and 2), Silvereyes (photo 3) and Double-barred Finches (photo 4).
all of whom do a stirling job keeping the bugs in check.
We found this delightful Grey Fantail nest in our old camellia tree at the front door.
The slightly cooler weather has been wonderful for pursuing creative tasks from cooking to sewing, embroidery and paper crafts. I made my son a delicious carrot cake, using a recipe from 
and hot cross buns for Easter Friday, using a recipe from 
My friend Heather, who visited us during the Candelo Arts Festival and is the Melbourne agent for Saori (
I gave my friends Rae, Brooklin and Kirsten, a hand embroidery lesson, inspiring Rae’s wonderful exhibit. I was so impressed!
I made embroidery rolls for their birthdays,
as well as a pair of felt appliqué cushions for my sister’s bed.
And another decoupage floral card and a paper owl, assembled from a German kit, which was given to me by my daughter in Berlin.
And finally, there were the bouquets from the garden! Masses of colourful zinnias…
and bright dahlias;
Scented roses;
And wonderful mixtures of colourful blooms!
How I love arranging flowers!
And finally, we had some wonderful days out, exploring new spots and revisiting old haunts. The Bendethera day in March was rather inclement and while we could not reach our final destination due to the amount of water in the final creek, we did ascertain that our vehicle could manage the 4WD tracks for a future camping trip and despite the rain and constant cloud, it was still a lovely day out.
We had much better April weather for our Monaro drive to Delegate, Jindabyne (including the wonderful Wildbrumby Scnapps Distillery in photo 2) and Thredbo (the Kosciuszko chair lift in photo 3) and discovered a wonderful birdwatching and trout fishing venue, Black Lake, near Cathcart, on our way home (photo 5), where we saw six elegant Black-Winged Stilts (photo 6).
We introduced friends to Bay Cliff and Greenglades (also see: 
and Aragunnu (also see: 
as well as revisiting Nunnock Swamp and Alexander’s Hut (also see: 
And we went canoeing on Back Lake at Merimbula, where we photographed a beautiful Azure Kingfisher, as well as a teenage cygnet and white egrets.
We are so lucky to have such easy access to these beautiful unspoilt natural areas! Next week, I am returning to our dreamy roses!