CLIPPINGS: the Victorian Racing Club’s head gardener shares tips for growing roses

Terry Freeman, head gardener at the Victorian Racing Club, shares tips for growing roses.

Blaming marvelous

As keeper of the roses, Terry Freeman (left) knows a thing or two about looking after the VRC’s extensive gardens and ower beds each year. “When I rst started there were 6000 roses – and since then, we have counted every rose that has been put in so we know just how many there are,” he says.

Heralding the start of spring, the VRC rose gardens are an integral part of the atmosphere of the Melbourne Cup Carnival. In preparation, Terry leads the team of 17 gardeners though their pruning roster from late May until August, starting with the slow growing varieties and moving onto the faster growers, so that each rose will reach peak bloom exactly on time.

Only once in recent memory did the roses miss their crucial deadline – owering a week late in the early 1990s. Terry knew two weeks out from the Melbourne Cup that the roses wouldn’t ower on time because it had been a very cold winter – the nights were cold and there had been very little sunshine through August and September.

“We had the Breakfast with the Stars event two weeks before the Melbourne Cup and the media twigged that the roses weren’t blooming and that generated enormous interest,” says Terry. “It was during the Gulf War and I remember that there had been a massive explosion in Bagdad – but on that day the rst story on the news was that the VRC roses weren’t blooming. I even got calls about it from the BBC in England,” he remembers.

And it’s not just the public who love the roses. “The horses do like eating the roses,” says Terry. “When they are brought out on a lead they’ll try to grab a mouthful as they go past if they can reach.”