It’s autumn now. The cicadas are singing and the days are growing shorter. I don’t mind. I’m ready for autumn. Autumn is the time in my garden for fresh starts. I can make new gardens, move plants, collect seeds and take cuttings. The soil is still warm and, at last, after a couple of weeks of good rainfall, it’s damp.

I ran through the Bolton Street Cemetery last weekend and the roses have long stopped flowering, all apart from two roses, both white. One is a shrub and one is a low spreading rose with lots of thorns. The rest of the roses are looking bare. It’s been a dry windy summer and the rose leaves, what’s left of them have lost their fresh spring glow. They’re looking dull and tired. The roses are ready for a rest.

The white rose that’s in flower is a Species rose from 1765 called Rosa bracteata, also called ‘The Mcartney Rose’. It’s evergreen and its fragrant flowers bloom continuously. It can be grown as a shrub or a climber and is considered a pest plant in some countries. It has lots and lots of thorns.

I decided to treat myself to some roses for my birthday. The only problem is that I can’t decide which ones to buy. I’ve been dreaming about roses a lot. I wake up with names like Buff Beauty and Thisbe and Marigold going around and around in my head.

Needless to say, I’ve found this blog hard to write. Every time I ought to be writing about the roses in the cemetery I've found myself looking at old and not so old roses to buy online. I’m infatuated with musk hybrids and the story behind them, I’m in love with the colour orange and want every scented orange rose available. Everything from fiery sunsets to tequila sunrises and every hue of pumpkin, apricot and blush in between. I really want a climbing Lady Hillingdon and a rose called Marigold.

I’m not quite sure where I’ll put my roses, I’m running out of spaces. At least I was until I started hacking out plants in my front garden. My front garden was supposed to be an exotic foliage garden, but not anymore. It’s turning into a flower border. I just can’t help myself.

Let’s travel back in time to the first week in December last year, and the first week of summer. Here is the main entrance to the Bolton Street Cemetery. You’ll notice a lovely old cottage with a red roof. It’s the second oldest house in Wellington and used to belong to the Sexton. And if, like me, you don’t exactly know what a sexton is, then don’t worry because I googled it. The sexton is the person who looks after the church and graveyard, they often dig the graves and ring the church bell - It’s an occupation that has become obsolete.

As you can see in the photo above there’re a number of roses in full bloom in front of the Sexton’s Cottage. I’m going to talk about one of them. The rambling purple rose on the far right. It’s a Hybrid multiflora called Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’, bred by Hermann Kiese in Germany and introduced by J.C. Schmidt in 1909. I have this growing in my own garden, though my rambler is a lot smaller. I bought it because it tolerates shade, is almost thornless (good for fences passed closely by people), has the most blueish - purple flowers of any rose, I’m told, and it’s scented, which to my mind is essential. Apparently it’s easy to propagate from cuttings - something I’ll try out in winter (using my rose not the one in the photo).

Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’. — *Rosa* ‘Veilchenblau’.

This is the most gothic looking part of the Bolton Street Cemetery and probably its’s oldest section. At least it was until the four lane motorway was built and hundreds of graves were relocated.

The oak tree is called The Selwyn Oak. People think that Bishop Selwyn planted it around 1842.

Technically, the motorway has more than four lanes but ‘four-lane motorway’ has a certain ring about it. If you look at the photograph above you’re able to see both sides of the cemetery. On the left is the part of the cemetery that I’ve documented in my first 2 blogs about old roses. On the right, where the big trees are growing, is the part I’m looking at today.

Most of the roses in this part of the cemetery are unlabelled. If they did have labels none of them were visible to me. And I wasn’t prepared to climb onto graves and pull apart thorn covered rose canes in order to find them.

The Duc de Cambridge is a Damask rose from 1815. It has long arching branches and is very scented.

Damask roses are one of the oldest group of roses, along with the Gallicas and Albas. Damasks originate in the Middle East. Rosarian Trevor Nottle wrote a brilliant book called ‘Growing Old - Fashioned Roses in Australia and New Zealand in 1983. I’m going to let him explain Damasks to you.

‘The Damasks are a very diverse group of plants the most common feature of which is that they are generally described as being untidy in their growth. They make very open bushes with a few leaders which often are lax, depending on surrounding shrubs for support…the basal shoots become thick with age and only a few new growths appear randomly from the base or near it…the thorns are strong and hooked, and set fairly densely around the growths. The leaves are grey-green and downy. The flowers are usually borne on large corymbs (flower heads) which develop slowly making for a long flowering season. The flowers are almost as variable as the growth.’

Jacques Cartier is a Portland rose from 1868. As you can see from the pictures he is a light pink rose. What you can’t see, because you need a nose and not a pair of eyes, is that Jacques Cartier is fragrant.

Portland Roses come from Italy. I say that with authority, but no one absolutely knows. They’re thought to be a cross of a China Rose and either a Gallica or Damask. Because of this union Portland roses flower continuously. This is how rosarian Graham Thomas described Portlands.

‘A small family, but a very charming one of compact, moderate growth, rich scent and perpetual flowering habit. A ruff of leaves round the short neck below the fat buds is a distinguishing feature.’

Nancy Steen, a famous New Zealand rosarian, had Jaques Cartier growing in her garden in Auckland which she’d grown from cutting. Jaques Cartier was named after ‘a famous sixteenth century navigator who came from the French seaport of St Malo. His exploration of the Gulf and River of St Lawrence (Canada) proved of great geographical importance, and ensured his name would never be forgotten,’ said Nancy Steen. I don’t know about you but I like to know the stories behind the names.

The next two roses below were without labels. Notice how they’ve been planted into the grass and mulched.

Unfortunately I photographed this rose too early, before its buds opened. But thanks to a wonderful description by Nancy Steen, which I’ll include in the next paragraph, this rose will flower in your mind. It’s a Climbing Tea called Devoniensis. Its flowers are loose double creamy-white blushed pink and fragrant.

‘One of the earliest Tea Roses was raised in England in 1838, by crossing Smith’s Yellow Tea with Park’s Yellow China. This was bred in Devon by a Mr Foster, and was named appropriately…Because of the creamy colouring and rich texture of the large, full rather flat blooms, this English Tea Rose is sometimes referred to as the Magnolia Rose - a name which suits it well. The splendid reddish-green foliage acts as a fine background for the pale beauty of the flowers, which are sometimes tinged with a soft buff at the base of the thick petals. At one time Devoniensis was used as a stock on which to bud more delicate Teas; and was found to be eminently satisfactory for this purpose.’ (The Charm of Old Roses by Nancy Steen, 1966)

The rose climbing beside Devoniensis is called Crépuscule. It’s a Noisette with double apricot, musk-scented flowers that grow in clusters. It was bred by Francis Debreuil in 1904.

It’s my understanding that Noisettes along with Bourbons and Portland roses were the first offspring of the accidental union of Chinas and European roses. Bourbons came from the Island of Reunion, Portlands came from Italy and Noisettes came from Charleston, South Carolina in America.

Rosarian Trevor Nottle gives a good description of Noisettes. ‘The flowers are usually small to medium, and often in clusters which are fairly large (frequently the larger the individual flower the smaller the cluster) and in colours from pale pink through white to cream to pale yellow. The leaves are light green, glossy and clothe the plant well. The stems are smooth and lightly armed with thorns. In habit the plants are usually between a bush and a climber, and are twiggy. Usually flowers again in autumn.’ (Growing Old-Fashioned Roses in Australia and New Zealand by Trevor Nottle, 1983).

Crépescule is French for ‘twilight’. The flowers are orange at first, then fade to apricot-yellow. Crépescule can grow to 4m in height and 2-4m in width. It can be trained as a climber or used as a weeping rose thanks to its long arching canes. It’s very disease resistant.

Rosa Glauca looks uninspiring in the photo above, sandwiched between graves, but it’s a great rose for growing into trees and over fences. This is how it’s described in one book. ‘Unsightly concrete walls can be effectively disguised with R. glauca, which has glaucous foliage richly toned with purple and wine. This rose is a real delight, with its warm-coloured leaves and small, pretty dull rose-pink flowers followed by hanging clusters of wine-tinged-red hips.’ (Gardening With Old Roses: A New Zealand Guide by Alan Sinclair and Rosemary Thodey, 1993).

And now I’m going to bombard you with photographs of a white rambling rose. It’s very romantic, spilling out and over the rusty iron fence. I’ll revisit it in winter and see if I can find a label.

Now we’ve arrived at the over bridge, built in 1978 to transport pedestrians from one side of the cemetery to the other. Crossing the four-lane motorway. Lots of these graves were placed here when the motorway was built.

You can see a white rugosa rose in the photo above and two below. At least that’s my best guess judging by the deeply veined leaves.

And now I’ve doubled back for a panoramic view of where I started this blog, the Selwyn Oak is in the distance.

The roses at the Bolton Street Cemetery are planted in an unfussy way. They’re given a space, mulched, given supports if needed and left alone. They grow amongst big old trees with a backdrop of ferns and bushes. The lawns around the roses aren’t manicured and weeds, often exotic plants that have lost their ‘good plant’ status grow alongside them. It’s a place that feels wild despite it being transformed in the late 60s with the motorway. The graves and grave surrounds become the garden architecture in this setting. And all of it is old, weathered and in varying states of decay. It’s a place where nature is allowed to take over.

I’ve learnt some valuable lessons about using roses in my garden. Roses are very robust, especially in Wellington’s climate (windy, not too cold or too hot and humid). Some roses need more space than others. Some are small and mounded others are volumous and spreading. Some roses really need other plants to prop them up whereas other roses will happily smother their neighbour. There are so many different types of roses and all of them have different requirements - some tolerate shade and poor soil and some need tons of sun and compost. Now that I’m beginning to understand rose classification I can see the importance of reading up on a rose before you plant it - it saves lots of moving around later, not to mention disappointments if the rose dwindles and dies.

In my garden I’m aiming for a wild, untamed naturalistic look, which is just as contrived as Victorian carpet bedding. But that’s fine with me. Here are a few photos from the summer that’s been to show how many plants I try to cram around my roses.

‘William Shakespeare’ David Austin Rose, 2000.

‘Matawhero Magic’ Hybrid Tea by Sam McGredy, 1998.

I finally ordered my birthday roses. Now I can stop making lists in my dreams. I’m trying out a new nursery, new to me that is, called Tasman Bay Roses. Coming my way soon will be Lady Hillingdon - a China, 3 Hybrid Musks: Buff Beauty, Danae and Thisbe, and 2 different Rugosas: Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’ and Blanc Double de Coubert. I still have to track down Marigold from somewhere else.

You will also find me on Instagram, @theordinarygardener, I try to post a photo a day and you’re very welcome to leave me a comment or ask a question. I’d love to hear from you. My next blog will be posted on Sunday 30th March.