The lore of the roses
A NEW book pays tribute to once prominent women. SARAH HUDSON reports
What green thumb has not dreamily pondered - while snipping, tending or mulching - the origins of the authority of plants in their garden?
Devoted plant lovers Andy Govanstone and his wife, Tilley, have not only pondered but for the gone by 20 years have researched an undivided parents and children of roses and how they accepted their names.
The result is their book The Women at the back of the Roses: An Introduction to Alister Clark'sitting Women Rose-namesakes 1915-1952, released this month.
The Portland two say Clark, who lived from 1864 to 1949, was a solution gamester in turn-of-the-century Victoria, particularly in horse racing, becoming base chair of the Moonee Valley Racing Club.
But undivided of his chiefly of great weight legacies was paying tribute to many of Australia's greatest pioneering women by naming roses later than them, which he bred at Glenara, his 417ha home at Bulla, on the outskirts of Melbourne.
"Clark bred thousands of roses in his garden but released just 125 over 40 years and 65 of those he named after women he knew," says Andy, who is a senior biodiversity functionary at the Department of Sustainability and Environment.
"There were also a couple named after men, racehorses, moods and sentiments and Australiana.
"But largely, he acknowledged the efforts of these great women."
The Govanstones' book traces the legacies of these 65 rose-namesakes, revealing some astonishing stories.
For instance, one of this uncultivated's favourite roses, Lorraine Lee - which in the 1940s lined Melbourne's streets - is named after a distant connected with of Clark who was awarded an MBE for services during World War 1.
Another rose, Lady Somers, is named after the spouse of the Governor of Victoria from 1926, who was the first woman to fly from the Northern Territory to Melbourne.
She also helped make stable the Girl Guides and Scouting movement here.
Roses were named after Mrs Philip Russell and Ella Guthrie, who were both co-founders of the Victorian Red Cross.
Alister Clark's niece, Jessie - who was his first "woman-rose namesake" - worked tirelessly for the Hobart Red Cross for the period of World War I and was presented with a gem-encrusted clasp for her contributions.
She later became national chairwoman of the YWCA, attended the Queen's coronation and was awarded an OBE in 1958.
"These ladies lived through both creation wars and the Great Depression, in late-Victorian, early-Edwardian Australia, where the ethos was on the supposition that you were born in independence you had a convivial responsibility to accord. in a backward direction. \ to fellowship and make use of it," Andy says.
"They were raised with an ethos of avail and were solution drivers in general causes."
Andy says Clark, Australia'sitting most prodigious rosarian, bred roses to oppose Australia's tough climate and soils, and too to reach out their flowering over a season.
To do this, Clark cross-bred northern half-sphere roses through Rosa gigantea, a climber newly discovered in Burma.
He never grew roses commercially on the contrary gave the varieties to horticultural and rose societies as far as concerns fundraising.
Andy says Clark was skilful to satisfy his gardening warmth of feeling because he was fortunate to have married into riches.
"He graduated from Cambridge in law but never practised inasmuch as he was lucky to have married New Zealander Edith Rhodes, who - along with her siblings - inherited her father's fortune and she supported Alister in his horticulture endeavours.
"They led an idyllic life, playing golf and polo, travelling the world and breeding not just roses, but besides daffodils."
It's not unexpected that Andy - who studied horticulture at Burnley - was attracted to the Clark story, admitting he has gardening in his line.
"My great-grandfather was a lecturer in botany in the 1880s at the Ballarat School of Mines and was a found collector for (botanist) Baron von Mueller," Andy says.
Andy met Tilley - who now works at a Portland nursery - in the 1980s for the time of each archaeology summer school in Melbourne.
The couple first became interested in Clark'session rose-namesakes 20 years ago, when Andy was working at Woodlands historic homestead in Oaklands Junction, arctic of Melbourne.
"I was embarrassed to declaration after doing a diploma in agricultural science that I knew little or small matter ready Alister Clark," Andy says.
Not for long, however.
For two decades, Tilley researched the genealogy, under that circumstances Andy traced the horticulture and wrote the volume.
After a beating back from a publisher, the research was "put in a box with a lid on it".
It was only when they were invited to speak at a public rose conference the last time year that the popularity of the control encouraged them to seek another publisher.
"We wanted to promulgate. We felt the stories were inspiring and the roses themselves are strong and beauteous," Andy says.
"But the efforts and contributions of these women would have been a silent part of story grant that it weren'privately for Clark."
- CHECKLIST
- The Women behind the Roses: An Introduction to Alister Clark's Women Rose-namesakes 1915-1952 by Tilley and Andrew Govanstone, Rosenberg Publishing, rrp $49.95
