Alister Clark Memorial Rose Garden (Bulla)

Enjoy a stroll through the magnificent rose gardens, located in the heart of Bulla. The rose gardens display a spectacular variety of stunning roses. Alister Clark's aim was to produce the first rose that flowered all year round. He achieved this goal with one of his most popular roses 'Lorraine Lee'. The Alister Clark Memorial Rose Garden is open every day of the year for visitors to stroll around and admire the 68 varieties of roses on display. All the roses are identified and their dedicatees described. The free brochure at the gate provides a model catalogue and map of the garden.

Opening Hours:

From October to March the roses are in full bloom and an open day is held on the Saturday after Melbourne Cup Day each year.

Cost:

Entry is free.

Review:

A lovely garden with a wide range of different roses (and some other plants) on display. There are a lot of information boards about the origins of many of the roses. The garden is nestled between two lovely bluestone buildings. There are a number of seats in the garden to rest on.

We visited in late September which might have been a little too early in the season.

Some of the information boards include the following information:

Alister Clark Memorial Rose Garden - Alister Clark was raised and lived at Glenara, Bulla. Alister was a rose and daffodil breeder of international repute, and although he died in 1949, he is still considered to be Australia's most prolific rose breeder. He was also an important social and cultural figure. As a President of the Shire of Bulla (now part of the City of Hume) he was committed to the development and wellbeing of his local community.

It is fitting that the Bulla community has come together to establish this Memorial Rose Garden to celebrate and recognise the work of this important man.

Hume City Council is indebted to a number of local community groups and people who have assisted with this project. In particular, Tid Alston of Oaklands has offered her horticultural expertise and personal knowledge of Alister Clark, his roses and daffodils. The Bulla Garden Club and the garden's many volunteers have provided on-going support through their maintenance, hosting garden visitation and fundraising for the garden.

How New Roses Come To Be
Step 1: A well developed bud (ready to burst) is selected selected on the chosen mother plant and all the petals are removed. The pollen carrying stamens (male part of the flower) are carefully removed with scissors or tweezers, making sure that no pollen falls on the stigma (female part of the flower). The naked stigma can be covered and left for a day to deepen in colour and become sticky before fertilisation.
Step 2: Pollen from the chosen father plant is lightly brushed onto the stigma of the mother plant. Alister Clark then tied each flower with tape and muslin to label and protect the hips as they develop.
Step 3: In late autumn, when the swollen hips ripen to red or orange, they are harvested and allowed to thy out. The seeds inside the hips are planted in spring. Plants are grown on until they flower, when their worth as a new rose can be assessed.
Selected new roses are then propagated/multiplied by cuttings or budding. New roses can also come about when a rose spontaneously grows a shoot that is different from the rest of the plant. This is known as a "sport" and interesting sports are propagated and released as new roses. Alister Clark 'sports' include 'Baxter Beauty' and 'Climbing Lorraine Lee". Out of tens of thousands of seedlings grown by Alister Clark, only 122 were formally released as selected varieties.

Roses - 'Lorraine Lee', 'Jessie Clark' and 'Black Boy' are roses that many Australians have planted or grown up with. These are just a few of the roses bred by Australia's most prolific and famous Rosarian - Alister Clark.

A Mission - Alister Clark aimed to produce the first rose that flowered all year round. He achieved this goal with one of his most popular roses - 'Lorraine Lee'. A vase of 'Lorraine Lee' was on show at every meeting of the National Rose Society for twenty consecutive months.

Roses for Australian Conditions - Alister was one of the first to breed roses specifically for Australian conditions. He was one of only a handful of rose breeders around the world to work with Rosa gigantea which comes from Burma and the Himalayas and does not thrive in colder climates.

Alister was an early environmentalist in his approach to gardening. He expected his roses to survive Australia's dry conditions, didn't see the need to 'coddle' them with special chemicals or fertilisers and relied on birds to control aphids.

Roses for the Everyday Gardener - Alister aimed for roses that performed well in an ordinary garden rather than for show roses. As a result, his roses were extremely popular with the Australian public. An Argus readers poll in 1937 awarded his rose - 'Lorraine Lee' - the most popular garden rose and 'Black Boy' the most popular climbing rose.

Despite the great popularity of his roses, Alister did not release them for his own commercial benefit. He donated them to rose societies and charities for their fundraising efforts. 'Jessie Clark', for example, was donated to the National Rose Society of Victoria. The proceeds from their sales contributed to the Alister Clark Fund. Alister was Founding President of the National Rose Society of Victoria, which was formed in 1899.

International Recognition - Alister was internationally recognised for his roses. He was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the American Rose Society and was elected Vice-President of the Royal Horticultural Society in London. In 1936 he was awarded the Dean Hole Memorial Medal from the National Rose Society in London - the highest honour for rose breeders. His roses were also planted in the world's greatest rose gardens - Bagatelle in Paris and Sangerhausen in Germany.

Photos:

Location

96 Bulla Road, Bulla 3428 Map