Dunedin Summer Festival tours of Dunedin's Northern Cemetery will focus on 1000 old roses. Gillian Vine reports.
In 2001, members of Heritage Roses Otago began an ambitious project to beautify Dunedin's Northern Cemetery by growing old roses on graves.
The plants were to supplement the memorial roses, some very old, already there and a small number planted by Dunedin City Council staff.
At the same time, the existing memorial roses were catalogued and, where possible, identified.
Careful records were kept by Heritage Roses Otago of what they grew.
Later, white swing tags were placed on the memorial roses and this year's project is to affix more permanent labels.
"It started with the first planting in August 2001," Heritage Roses Otago president Ann Williams, of Mosgiel, says.
"Now we've got 1000."
When he visited the cemetery in November 2008, South Australian rosarian David Ruston raved about the roses, saying they deserved international recognition, and Dunedin City Councillors were last month "blown away" by what they saw, Mrs Williams said.
The project has been strongly supported by DCC staff: "They're brilliant," Mrs Williams says.
The roses are an eclectic bunch - species such as grey-foliaged Rosa glauca and huge-thorned Rosa serica pteracantha, rugosas, polyanthas, Rosa moyesii hybrids and moss roses, whose buds smell like pine.
Families sometimes ask for Heritage Roses Otago to plant a rose on their behalf and members are happy to do so.
"All we ask is the price of the rose and then we look after it," Mrs Williams says.
Looking after the roses is ongoing.
The group has a work day on the first Monday of each month, which can attract from two to eight members.
"Then we have four massive cleanup days a year when members turn out in force to weed, feed and prune all the roses," she says.
Dunedin City Council contractors do the mulching.
Although the main flowering is from late November, there is another attraction of old roses.
"Once the flowers have finished, we go into the hips [stage] when they are just as impressive," Mrs Williams says.
Heritage Roses Otago offers tours of the Northern Cemetery from November to March and next month is running two special tours to give people an opportunity to see what has been done.
With 1000 roses to care for, the organisation is not planning more plantings.
"It's a cemetery, not a garden," Mrs Williams says.
See them
Heritage Roses Otago's Summer Festival tours run on Saturday, February 6, Sunday, February 14, and Sunday, February 21, starting at 2pm. Each tour takes one to one and a-half hours and the cost is $2 per person. Wear flat shoes, suitable for walking. For details, to book or to join Heritage Roses Otago, phone Ann Williams (03) 489-6641.
