A GIFTED GROWER
Gardening has lost a leading light with the death last week of heritage rose expert and author Susan Irvine at the age of 91. Susan came to Tasmania from Victoria, settling at Forest Hall at Elizabeth Town (near Deloraine) in 1995.
There she and husband Bill restored the Georgian stone house and outbuildings and planted a garden.
Susan was passionate about old roses, and filled her garden with them, along with a host of other plants, including daffodils. As she gardened, she documented her work with a book called The Garden at Forest Hall, and followed this with a diary-style book called Rose Hips and Crabapples, beautifully illustrated with photographs by leading garden photographer Simon Griffiths.
Although Susan sold Forest Hall several years ago, downsizing first to Evandale and later to Launceston, her garden remains.
When I drove past it just after hearing the news of her death, the golden daffodils were in full bloom and her roses will soon be in full flower.
Respected garden influencer
Although gardeners associate Susan with roses, she had a long career as an educator. She taught German (a language she was fluent in) at private schools in both Victoria and Tasmania, and later became headmistress at Lauriston School in Victoria. Roses were her “retirement” project.
It was Susan’s first books that were most influential for gardeners. In them she chronicled her discovery and passion for old roses — particularly the Australian-bred roses of Alister Clark (1864-1949) — as she planted a rose garden around a stone house called Bleak House at Malmsbury. She also developed a rose nursery.
The book about the making of this garden, and the rediscovery and identification of Alister Clark’s roses, is titled A Garden of a Thousand Roses. Susan’s books are not textbooks but read like novels combining biography, adventure (she was often on the hunt for lost roses) and planting advice.
Mention Susan’s name to any dedicated gardener and they’ll probably acknowledge that this book influenced their gardening and led them to discover the beauty of heritage roses.
A rose by any other name
As befits a rose grower, there is a rose named in Susan’s honour. A hybrid of Rosa gigantea is named “Susan Irvine”. Rosa gigantea (as its name suggests, a vigorous and large-growing species rose) was one of the roses used by Alister Clark as he developed roses specifically for the Australian climate.
Susan also named a rose she discovered at Bleak House. It is a type of rugosa rose, which she named “Niree Hunter” for her mother.
I am lucky enough to have this rose in my garden. Rugosa roses are thorny, suckering roses grown for their vibrant flowers, diseasefree growth and colourful rose hips. They form dense hedges and tolerate seaside conditions.
As the news of Susan’s death spread on social media last week, many gardeners acknowledged how much they owed to her for their own passion for roses. Some people commented that they would plant a rose in her honour. While it seems that planting the rose named for Susan would be a natural tribute, this vigorous and thorny rose is better suited to growing over a large barn rather than planting in a suburban garden, and Susan herself didn’t really like it.
Tamer options would be any of the Alister Clark roses such “Carabella”, a pink-flowered climbing rose Susan rescued from obscurity; “Lorraine Lee”. a pink long-flowering rose; or “Nancy Hayward”, a climbing rose named for socialite Nancy Hayward, with single red-pink flowers.
I have retrieved Susan’s books from my shelf to re-read and marvel again at her dedication to and delight in gardening and roses. Vale Susan Irvine.