Trevor Nottle is an Australian rose expert, author and lecturer.

What can I tell you about roses that you don’t already know? Perhaps not much, but maybe a few things of interest that you haven’t already come across when travelling. I suspect that your experiences with roses, like mine are coloured most strongly by what happens in our own gardens. We attain that knowing familiarity that enables us to feel comfortable about growing roses and enjoying the various pleasure offered by beautiful flowers, refined perfumes, bold fruits and handsome foliage. Faithfully served by ‘Iceberg’, ‘Sea Foam’ and ‘White Flower Carpet’ we tend towards a certain smugness that is set like concrete concerning ‘the’ roses to use in our garden making. Fashion? Never!!! White roses are just what we have always like. Or maybe it is pink roses; or yellow or the post-Modem neon, fluorescent shades suited to hard edged ‘jardins concrete’. We recognize the new arriviste novelties, the passe has beens and the old favorites; each finding its place, categorized and stored away in our memory banks.

Yet when we travel away from our own countries we find, to our curious amazement, there are more roses than we had ever contemplated —roses that we have never heard of, roses that are mysteries to our recollection. Roses as a family take on a freshness that they never have back home when we journey in foreign parts. In considerable excitement we hover over each previously unknown beauty. I recall my first meeting with ‘Lady Ann Kidwell’ in a suburban side street somewhere in LA; round and round the towering bush I went looking at each cluster of flowers and buds with keen appreciation. Here was a rose I really needed Down Under. Have you not known such pangs of thorny want? How strong the urge to smuggle just one little cutting across the border and through Customs? I wish for it still.

So what would you expect to find in a country where no roses are native, where no roses were before the last years of the 18th century? Would you find a rose that could not be lived without; or Ah, yes you say, but Australia has an Anglo-European culture; they speak English, spend dollars, eat steaks and hamburgers, drink beer —surely their gardens must be like ours; they must have roses, surely just the same as ours.

And so we do but our roses, the roses bred in Australia, you might not recognize. The best roses raised here Down Under have one or two significant unique features that have come about through the efforts of breeders who have done some critical environmental analysis before they set to work with tweezers, pollen brush and tags.

The best roses have been selected for habits of growth and flowering which are suited to the warm dry climate. These are characterized by masses of informal, semi-double flowers carried on generous sized trusses that are set off by dark, leathery foliage that covers the bushes from top to bottom over strong framework of branches. There are garden roses; roses able to carry on blooming despite drought and heatwave and scorching summer winds, roses that are meant for the outdoors not the show bench. The best known Australian roses have been raised by Mister Clark and Frank Reithmuller; one a wealthy gentleman of Leisure, the a migrant working man — each working alone and year apart, but each having the sharpest insight into the kinds of rose that were needed by Australian home gardeners and each with a similar vision of rose beauty. Reithmuller introduced few roses, no more than a handful but Clark gave away to nurserymen, rose societies and friends over one hundred and twenty varieties bred by his own hand — each one of them assessed by his critical eye as meeting the requirements of a good flowering shrub rose. Clark sent some of his roses overseas to California and the French Riviera where it was thought the climates were approximately the same as that of southern Australia. As Rosa gigantea had been used extensively by Clark in his breeding lines the resultant plants tend to be cold tender but perform magnificently in warm, frost free areas. Well received at the time these rose became ‘lost’ due to changes in fashion and the rush of ever new novelties. Now, thanks to a few dedicated collectors in Australia many have been located in old and derelict gardens, re-identified and reintroduced, some of these varieties have also been exported to Canada and the USA. Some Australians you might meet whilst catalogue cruising in the next few years are:

‘ Borderer’ (Clark, 1918) - a very compact, low growing Polyantha with a long and prolific season of flowers. Fully double salmon pink, paler and creamy towards the center. Ideal for small hedges.

‘ Carabella’ (Reithmulle; 1960) - compact growth that is vigorous, very large heads of small ;single flowers of soft pink, paler towards the center. Makes a refined, ever-blooming standard or a handsome shrub.

‘ Daydream’ (Clark, 1925) - waterlily-like blooms of pale pink, semi-double but open form and golden stamens that set off to perfection the color of the petals. Strong, adaptable growth that can be used to clothe a pillar or post, or primed down to make a very attractive shrub.

‘ Jessie Clark’ (Clark, 1915) - strong Gigantea climber with one heavy flush of glorious soft pink, single flowers in late spring, lovely planted with ‘Mine Gregoire Stachelin’.

‘ Honeyflow’ (Reithmullei 1957) - Polyantha sized flower heads of very pale pink and white flowers that go on and on for weeks. A splendid shrub or a neat standard. Very few prickles.

‘ Mrs Richard Turnbull’ (Clark, no date) - a very strong climber which clearly shows its Gigantea blood. Huge single creamy yellow flowers in small clusters; as good as ‘Mermaid’ but without such fierce armament. Best scrambling up a large tree, tumbling over a steep embankment or over a high wall.

‘ Nancy Hayward’ (Clark, 1937) - strong Gigantea growth and one stunning flowering in late spring, or earlier in winter if pruned in late summer —this only in frost free areas. Cheerful, bold lipstick pink flowers that stand out and command attention. Careful color planning needed but it can be a knockout with greys and silvers.

‘ Squatter’s Dream’ (Clark, 1923) - spreading growth well clothed with glossy green leaves bronzed with · red tones show off the single coppery gold and cream flowers. Very few prickles and continuous bloom in warm areas. A great Shrub.

‘ Sunlit’ (Clark, 1937) - very refined double flowers of soft apricot with pink undertones. Acclaimed when it was first released in America. Compact growth that bears masses of flowers over a long season.

‘ Titian’ (Reithmullei 1950) - a modest pillar rose or small climber. Prolific soft red flowers, semidouble, high centered and well perfumed. The canes are well hidden with dark green foliage and the extended flowering season make this a very useful plant for a small garden where all round performance is desired.