Rose gardens at Old Parliament House

If you love sunshine and roses….then a visit to the Old Parliament House Rose gardens in spring time is a must.

These photos were taken in November, during a gloriously wet spring.

In 1927 Canberra became the new capital of Australia.

The bush capital…. so beautiful today, was, in those days, a cluster of buildings on windswept limestone plains….

Empire Parliamentary Association tree planting ceremony in front of Parliament House 1926 (Mildenhall’s Canberra National Archives)

Just look at this old photo of a group of people trying to do some tree planting as they huddle together out in that windswept limestone plain ….

 

 

 

 

 

 

The newly formed capital of Australia was a compromise….neither of the two large cities in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne, wished the other to be the capital.

Old Parliament House, now the Museum of Australian Democracy

Therefore Canberra, geographically between the two cities, was chosen as the site to be a new capital.

It became the responsibility of parliamentary officer Robert Broinowski to build some gardens around the Old Parliament House and bring some relief to the new buildings.

The gardens included tennis courts, and a bowling green… much needed in those days when homes and families were so far away, and travel was long and hard.

I’m sure those early politicians  could not imagine how lovely the grounds of Old Parliament House look today.

The gardens, on either side of the Old Parliament House, consist of four rose gardens. Each garden was originally designed and laid out in a simple quadrant design, with roses in two quadrants.

This photo was taken in early summer, when the beautiful lilac and white wisteria on the white pillars had turned to green..

In this post I am writing about the House of Representative Gardens, which has two gardens.

The first is the Macarthur Rose Garden which is filled with one hundred red ”Etoile de Hollande” and shot silk roses donated by the great grand daughter of John and Elizabeth Macarthur. This gift marked the major contribution by John and Elizabeth Macarthur, to the early settlement of Australia in the breeding of Merino sheep at Parramatta and Camden. Many large farms from settlement to today, have lovely gardens and include roses.

The decision was made to plant roses in all the gardens. They provided colour to the unrelenting browns and greys of the Australian landscape, they reminded politicians of homes in the Northern Hemisphere, and lastly and most importantly, they were cheap to grow and very hardy.

Fortunately Broinowski was a passionate gardener, and, even during the Depression he kept up  the project of designing and planting by searching for donations far and wide.

He asked the wives of politicians to support the second garden, known appropriately as the Ladies Rose garden, and started gathering donations of one shilling and four pence per rose.

This garden has Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses which were very popular at the time, and are an absolute delight to look at on a spring day….here are just a few..

 

Just Joey

 

Playboy

 

 

 

Lavender Pinocchio

 

Perfume Perfection

 

 

 

 

Hot chocolate
Gold bunny

 

Madam President

 

Peace

Once you start looking at these lovely roses, you are hooked, and there is no known cure!

Charles Weston had originally designed and planted Eucalyptus trees around the grounds of Parliament House, and these, and dense hedges keep the roses safe from hot dry winds.

This would not be a post about Canberra if I didn’t include some of our resident Sulphur Crested Cockatoos…….a number of them spend time around Parliament House, no doubt using the Eucalyptus trees for nesting, and the acorn trees for food.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoos eating on the grass around Old Parliament House in autumn.

I haven’t check with the gardeners, but I suspect the Cockatoos have a penchant for loping the stems of tender colourful plants, like roses,  and  may be a mixed blessing here.

….. but there is something endearingly Australian about having recalcitrant Cockatoos in residence so close to the seat of government.

 

Friends of Old Parliament House Rose Gardens

www.fophrg.au

Copyright Geraldine Mackey All Rights Reserved.