Tracy Brown, A love of heritage roses

29 Jul

My name is Tracy Brown and I am the distance coordinator for the NZ Heritage Rose Society. I took this role on in October 2023 as I thought it was a good opportunity to get know other old fashioned rose lovers and learn from those who are much more knowledgeable than me!

I have had a life-long passion for heritage roses that started in Northland as a child when my mother and grandparents all had very green fingers and large gardens of roses, old fashioned flowers and vegetables. Northland is full of history, stories of the early settlers and many heritage roses and gardens including the Kemp House/Stone Store in Kerikeri and the fabulous Reyburn House in Whangarei.

I first joined the Heritage Rose Society in my mid 20’s during the halcyon days of heritage roses of the ‘90’s when you could buy heritage roses at almost every garden centre or get cuttings and suckers from garden group friends.

When I first moved to our farm in the Waikato, I dug up every available piece of the section around our farm cottage. I convinced my long suffering husband to move out fences & shift old shrubs making way for heritage and David Austin roses as well as bring in tip trailer loads of the most glorious top soil. Having originally grown up with challenging Northland soil, I couldn’t believe the endless supply of the most wonderful soil I had ever seen! The rainfall at 1200mm per annum was also a bonus!

I have 4 adult children now 4 years 11 months apart in age so when they were young my garden had to take a bit of a back seat. I have however always had the rose Anais Segales in my garden. My mother dug this up as a sucker on the side of the road in the Hokianga, the descendants of this original plant I still have in my garden today.

This is one of the things I love the most about gardening and in particular heritage roses as it gives us connection to those who have come before us and those who will come after us. But probably more importantly it gives us connection to other garden lovers in the here and now. It doesn’t matter that we can’t see each other on a daily basis it gives us a place to leave from and pick up again. This is what I most hope to achieve as distance coordinator is a greater sense of connection of the members.

My own garden on the farm now is medium to large size and now live in the main homestead on the farm. I inherited my mother in laws garden which I am slowly making my own having done extensions during Covid. Since we live on a farm the boundaries and fences can be quite fluid, with me moving out the electric fence standards of where the new fences will go & my husband moving them it, it is a very visible process of negotiation!

I love to pick flowers and make bouquets and arrangements so have created my garden around colour schemes. For example, Monets garden (blue, yellow and white), a Royal Garden (Burgundy, Red & Purple), an antique garden (apricot, lemon and pink), oranges and lemons (well that’s self-explanatory) and my rusty old shed garden (burgundy, oranges and reds). On the bank below the tennis court I have all red and pink David Austin roses, sounds a strange combination but it looks fabulous with pink and red penstemon’s and red magnolias.

To me my garden is a place of solace, creativity, exercise and relaxation, I never, ever think of it as work. I have governance and leadership roles off-farm so having somewhere to de-stress is really important. In this busy world I believe it’s really important that we give ourselves and others permission to do this.

Some of my favourite old fashioned roses & why:-

1. Anais Segales (Gallica) – she has been with me the longest and connection to place as described above. She also has the most beautiful fragrance and purple colour, I grow this as a rose hedge on a bank where she can go as wild as she likes!

2. Charles des Mills (Gallica) – the most gorgeous magenta double burgundy rose with an incredibly intense fragrance. A real favourite but even more so since she won me the most outstanding old fashioned rose exhibit at our local Rose Show last December!

3. Cecile Brunner (China) – I have one around 50 years old that has been a participant in many special family occasions. She has made herself so much at home growing up our tennis court netting that it took my husband a week to replace some of the poles that had collapsed under her weight and my lack of pruning. Suffice to say she now gets a short back and sides every years with the chainsaw and still comes out looking fabulous!

4. William Lobb (Moss) – continuing my obsession with burgundy roses…this one I love for its sheer size, prickliness and breath-taking display once a year.

5. Pierre de Ronsard – also known as the Eden Rose. I have recently planted two on an old set of traction engine wheels as she is a climber. This most perfect feminine pale pink and cream romantic and beautifully perfumed rose. I only hope I have given her enough height to grow as I think she’d be better on a pergola where one can look up into her flowers.

6. General Gallieni (Tea) – Burgundy/Apricot/Red that never stops flowering so you never know when to prune her, I have 8 of these and love them because they colour intensity and combinations change with the seasons. I have this planted near Mutabalis (the butterfly rose) and together they make a fabulous show.

7. Honorine de Brabrant (Bourbon) – I love the name and the hot pink and white striped cupped flower. I also did a pink and white old fashioned rose arrangement for our local rose show featuring this gorgeous rose.

8. De la Griffiere (Gallica) – medium pink and double, I have this as a hedge and pick it by the bucket load as she has the most beautiful fragrance. Can also be grown as a small climber, in fact I found one recently that my mother in law she had planted as a sucker after a Heritage Rose Society trip to the Bay of Plenty around 25 years ago.

For those who are interested the Heritage Rose Society has a Conference later this year in Cromwell. Check out the website heritageroses.org.nz for more details on this and membership if you are interested. As it has become harder to buy old fashioned roses we also have a programme up and running to source and share old fashioned beauties!