Better Homes and Gardens (Australia)
Everything’s coming up roses
LIFT YOUR SPIRITS AND INDULGE IN NOSTALGIA
Scent your garden with classic flowers and indulge in nostalgia
1 SO ENTICING
An archway can be as simple as a wooden or metal frame, or as grand as this one built from stone. Either way, it creates an air of mystery – that there is something exciting beyond!
2 COME INSIDE!
Your front entrance makes a statement about you – your personality and your home. Two tall rose bushes either side of the steps give a warm welcome with an exquisitely sweet perfume.
3 STYLE DRIVE
An avenue of stately London plane trees makes a grand entrance, but you can line your driveway with an equally fetching statement – perhaps narrow beds of colourful, seasonal flowers, strappyleafed plants or even a low hedge – it’s up to you!
Old roses capture the essence of yesteryear and none more so than those at the colonial homestead of Noojee Lea at Canowindra in western NSW. Here, the old roses mostly flower only in early summer, but they put on a magnificent display and have wonderfully intense fragrances. They are also generally extremely tough – helpful in this region’s rugged climate – and easy to look after, which is a good thing considering the sheer volume of the bushes at Noojee Lea.
4 SET THE SCENE
A pergola is more than just functional support for a dreamy wisteria – make it wide enough so it becomes a room, then set up tables and chairs and get up close to the cascades of spring flowers, the rich summer foliage and the so light in winter a er the leaves have fallen.
5 GREAT WORK!
French lavender flowers are fa er than common lavenders, and the perfume is intense. They also have a very practical role to play in your garden – their perfume repels aphids, which love roses!
6 GIVE PLANTS FREE REIN
You can make symmetry the design foundation for your garden, but that doesn’t stop you going a li le wild with your plantings – let them cross boundaries if that’s their natural inclination!
BLOOMS ON SHOW
Roses feature along the grand front entrance that opens to an avenue of London plane trees – always a harbinger of beautiful things ahead. They are bountiful, beautiful sentries at the front door. They are guardians over the vegie plots built to fill the intersection of the two avenues in the walled garden. And they are a perfumed profusion at the walled garden’s majestic dry-stone archway. It’s only in the western courtyard where they have competition – wisteria covering the pergola, classic French lavender (Lavandula dentata) and periwinkle (Vinca sp) circling the ornate fountain, and the aroma of fresh herbs for the nearby kitchen. This garden of old roses proves that things do get better with age!
If the air is heady with perfume, you’ll guess correctly roses are nearby!