This site is a collaborative effort by the many Ausgardeners who love roses and wanted to share their insights and experiences with you. We hope you will find it both informative and interesting. Ausgardeners live in different environments, have different lifestyles - each has a different approach. They are creative, adaptive and utilize whatever materials there are to hand so everything comes up roses. Because the site is always in development, we wish to invite your involvement. If you have firsthand knowledge of growing roses please feel free to share it with us, whether you have a lifetime’s experience or are still on a voyage of discovery. No contribution is too small and if you give your general location, Ausgardeners will be able to compare experiences with different soils and climates. Any ideas, comments and suggestions you have about the information you find here will help us design a site that reflects our love and interest in roses and will contribute to the spirit of true community we want you to share with us.

Alister Clark

Alister Clark is a man whose name you may recognize less than his floral creations. This is a sad testament to the passage of time, as in his lifetime he was known and loved by many. Rose breeder Sam McGredy has said that Alister Clark was a rose breeder ahead of his time.

Alister Clark's influence as a rosarian is inestimable

George Dawson

George Dawson was Australia’s most prolific breeder of modern hybrid tea roses. After retiring from his market garden at Ferntree Gully, he moved to Bunyip where he concentrated on his rose breeding program, his main objectives being good colour and perfume. At his peak, he is said to have sowed some 20,000 seeds in a season, which should certainly have provided several thousand seedlings. Of these hopefuls, those few which he considered the best would eventually be released, although his garden contained many more seedlings that were quite beautiful but never shown.

Ron Bell

Ron Bell was instrumental in the foundation of the Australian Rose Breeder s Association. He is also very active within the Rose Society of Victoria. In 1979 he received the T.A. Stewart Memorial Award.

His breeding program has concentrated on hybrid teas of exhibition type.

April Hamer: 1983 Hybrid Tea. Silver to rose pink blooms, deepening with age, with a good fragrance. Of exhibition standard. A free-flowering bush with good disease resistance.

Centifolias

Also known as the ‘Great Holland Rose’,Provence Rose’ ,‘Cabbage Rose’ and the ‘Rose des Peintres’, they have a history of intrigue and mystery. Initially R.centifolia (which botanically should be centipetala)was classified as a species rose and thought to date back to around 300BC because of references from that era to a ‘hundred petalled rose’. It has never been found growing in the wild and recent examination
of the chromosomes show it to be a complex hybrid of four species. These species are- R.gallica,R.phoenicia,R.moschata and R.canina.

Albas

Also known as the ‘White Rose’ and the ‘Rose of Albion’, they are considered to be ancient . Albas are a natural hybrid between R.gallica x R.corymbifera or R.damascena x R.canina. The fact that both R. x alba and R.canina have irregular chromosome counts, points to the latter combination.
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