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Rose
Gardens Hately Park
While
the structured formality of Edwardian gardens could be timeless
in quality, many of their typical roses were not favoured with
longevity. For instance, a large number of the Hybrid Perpetuals
in the Hatley Park design do not exist in modern gardens. As
well as being awkward in appearance, they were susceptible to
disease, and their colour range was limited: a visitor walking
the paths of the original Hatley Park garden would have seen
clouds of maroon, dark red, pink and white flowers emanating
from its Hybrid Perpetuals, with an occasional touch of yellow
or orange provided by the other classes. In addition, in spite
of their name (Perpetuals) they were not truly "remontant" – they
bloomed and rebloomed mainly in June and July, whereas many other
roses continue into the fall season.
When they renovated the Hatley Park rose garden in 1997, Rutherford
and Higgs realized it would be impossible to fully return to
the 1913 design. Although they retained its egg-shaped outline
with a main path running parallel to a defining outer wall, they
introduced a variety of different plants. A central lawn that
had replaced rose plantings at some point in the past was removed;
healthy soil was dug into the ground and a team of gardeners
created new beds. Brentwood Bay Nurseries donated over two hundred
plants, including some David Austins, bred in England in recent
decades to combine the strengths and scents of hardy old roses
with the remontant nature of modern hybrids.
Along the garden's perimeter are heritage roses from antiquity
to more recent centuries, including such notables as Rosa gallica
var. officinalis (also known as the Apothecary's Rose, put to
medicinal uses from ancient times onwards) and R. `York and Lancaster'
(the latter dating from approximately 1550, and representing
the two great English families whose battles culminated in the
establishment of the Tudor dynasty). One rose from the Brett
and Hall planting design, along with others maintained through
the replanting of cuttings taken from it, has survived from the
start – it's a R. `American Pillar,' a lovely rambler developed
in 1902. Four American Pillars are now located on the ground
precisely where they appear in the plan, two of them beside a
gate into the greenhouse area, and two near an exit to the Japanese
Garden. Also reflected both on the design and in the garden itself
are R. `Gruss an Teplitz' and R. `La France,' although neither
are original plants.
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The
rose garden was designed in 1913 by Brett and Hall, and its
structure reflects the romantic taste of the Edwardian era.
Many of the popular Hybrid Perpetuals and Hybrid Tea roses
first planted in it did not prove to be hardy, and very few
of them exist in modern gardens. However, one American Pillar
in this garden did survive, as did several maintained through
cuttings from it. Four of them are located precisely where
they appear on the planting plan. Other survivors are Gruss
an Teplitz and La France.
When
the garden was renovated in 1997, a lawn, which had replaced
some central planting beds earlier, was removed and modern roses
donated by Brentwood Bay Nurseries were placed in this area instead.
The sundial and bench in the garden are original.
Almost
a century ago, one of its designers explained how to find it:
strolling from the Italian Garden adjacent to the Castle, "the
steps leading to the croquet court also lead to the path to the
tennis court and beyond to the rose garden…This path skirts
a little pond and stream which, with the overhanging trees and
flower-carpeted banks, form a particularly pleasing feature." Franklin
Brett, who partnered with George D. Hall in a Boston landscaping
firm that completed several early British Columbia gardens, penned
these directions for the readers of The American Architect in
1916.
Today the walled rose garden can be reached by the same route,
with the path past the pond now skirting the patio behind the
Royal Roads University library. On a warm day the scent of the
garden can be caught long before it's seen. Entering through
an unassuming deer gate just past the tennis court and taking
a few steps inwards, you'll be transfixed: roses dangle from
above, reach sideways from posts, and rise up from the ground
ahead. Big ones, small ones; red, yellow, pink-and-white striped
ones… Ramblers, pillars, shrubs… Old ones, new
ones: Albas, Damasks, Gallicas and modern David Austins…Every
class of rose known to humankind seems to flourish in seclusion
here.
Why, you might wonder, is a beautiful rose bower concealed so
far from its castle? The answer lies in its owners' wish to mirror
British upper-class life during the period when the garden was
created. A generation earlier, Victorian rose gardens had held
many plants which offered excellent cutting flowers for manor
rooms but were ungainly in appearance, so they were located well
beyond tightly controlled beds of annuals and other features
generally displayed for the interest of guests. The Edwardian
gentry who followed in the early years of the 20th Century adored
embellishment and decorated their inherited rose recesses with
romantic overhanging swags, billowing sprays trained on pergolas
and pillars, and sweeping banks of ramblers.
James and Laura Dunsmuir wanted their Hatley property to have
the appearance of inherited English grounds which had evolved
naturally through the epochs, so its landscape held elements
typical of such estates in Edwardian times: a formal terrace
adjacent to a mansion, perennial borders, and a distant domain
brimming with picturesque, popular contemporary roses.
Today, gardener Greg Higgs, under the leadership of head gardener
David Rutherford, manages Hatley Park's rose garden. It contains
a broader range of roses than when it was first created. The
1913 planting plan of Brett and Hall housed in the university
archives reveals an emphasis on the Hybrid Perpetual, Hybrid
Tea and Wichuraiana Ramblers then in vogue.
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