(2002)  Page(s) 66.  
 
The first sport to arrive was ‘Betsy Taaffe’, a gift from David Taaffe, a Victorian nurseryman. He had found this soft yellow bloom on a bush of the vivid apricot rose ‘Abraham Darby’ which was growing in his garden…..’Betsy Taaffe’ was named after David Taaffe’s mother, who made a beautiful rose garden in New Zealand. The rose resembles its parent in most respects but the colour varies from soft apricot to lemon yellow. The scent is less strong than that of its parent but it has the ability like ‘Abraham Darby’, to flower over a very long period, and like its parent, it is also a good cut flower.

(2002)  Page(s) 213.  
 
Another Alister Clark rose I had not previously grown is ‘Cecily O’Rorke’. It is also a vigorous climber. The semi-single flowers are pink.....they are borne recurrently. It was named for a niece of Alister’s wife, Edith, and fittingly she was a talented painter of watercolours.

(2002)  Page(s) 236.  
 
I put two Alister Clark roses in the oak paddock. ‘Courier’ is a delight but it hates the frost. It bears palest pink blooms, which fade to white, on a vigorous climbing plant. It is probably a hybrid of the frost tender R. gigantea. It is still growing – and flowering – at Alister’s home at Glenara but this is in a warm, protected valley. I had had trouble with it at Erinvale. It grew and covered itself with buds that promised great things, yet almost always we had a late frost and the buds turned brown and failed to open. But I love it, so have planted three in the shelter of the outer branches of a blackwood and so far they are doing well.

(2002)  Page(s) 129.  
 
A bed runs right along beside the pergolas from the foot of the steps to the gates into the daffodil paddock. In this I planted a collection of shrub roses – two or three of each. Alister Clark’s so-well-named, semi-single, pale pink ‘Daydream’ is here. This can be treated as a shrub or a small climber. I have treated it as a shrub but bent the long canes horizontally to increase flowering.

(2002)  Page(s) 201.  
 
Several of what Swane’s nursery in Sydney call Cottage Garden Roses were added to this bed…. Named for English counties, some were bred in Denmark, some in Germany. They form low-growing shrubs that bear clusters of charming small double roses over a very long period. ‘Devon’ [is] palest apricot.

(2002)  Page(s) 176.  
 
My first selection for this red bed was ‘Editor Stewart’ which has to be one of the best reds I know. I think Alister thought so too as he experimented for years before he found one among his seedlings that he thought was good enough to be named for his great friend the editor of the Australian Rose Annual. It grows tall. In fact it could be treated as a pillar rose. The colour is a bright cherry red and the large, open flowers have unusual wavy petals. The young foliage too is red.

(2002)  Page(s) 81.  
 
I found a plant of ‘Francesca’, a Hybrid Musk I had not grown before.    It was bred by the Reverend Pemberton, the originator of the whole much-treasured family of Hybrid Musks.    Like most of the others, ‘Francesca’ grows into an attractive arching shrub, but its semi-double, rather lethargic-looking flowers are apricot yellow, so they were wrong for this predominantly pink bed.    In the end I found a spot for it in the blacksmith's garden near 'Buff Beauty'. 

(2002)  Page(s) 45.  
 
At the end of the same path I found space for two plants of ‘Howard Florey’, a rose from the fine Australian breeder George Thomson. Its brilliant apricot colouring and wavy petals are reminiscent of the popular ‘Just Joey’. It was released in 1999 to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the outstanding Australian scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945 for his work in developing penicillin. The rose is a beauty and flowers nearly as generously as ‘Squatter’s Dream’. It is the result of a cross between two very well-loved roses – ‘Apricot Nectar’ and ‘Seduction’.

[Note: parentage reversed']

(2002)  Includes photo(s).
 
p64 Photo. Caption: Palest apricot yellow, ‘Jean Galbraith’ is a sport of the much deeper apricot ‘Abraham Darby’.

p67 Then last year when my annual parcel of roses from Nieuwesteeg’s Rose Nursery in Melbourne arrived in early August, I was surprised to find included in it five (unsolicited) plants of a rose labelled ‘Jean Galbraith’. Attached to them was a note from John Nieuwesteeg saying that this was a sport of the David Austin rose ‘Abraham Darby’ (that man again!) which had appeared on one of his bushes. He had propagated and registered it, and thought I might like to try it…..The flowers of ‘Jean Galbraith’ are a gentle yellow, sometimes faintly flushed with the apricot of its parent. It grew amazingly even in its first year and the bushes are now close to 2 metres high and constantly covered in blooms.

(2002)  Page(s) 213.  
 
I had just acquired a plant of ‘Lady Medallist’. Released in 1912 this was Alister Clark’s first great success. He named it for one of his racehorses – also a success. I had looked for it for years unsuccessfully. None of the rose nurseries stocked it. Most of them had never heard of it. Then unexpectedly it turned up a few years ago in a neglected garden in Western Australia. It is a vigorous climber. So I planted it between two of the red hawthorns and trained the long shoots horizontally. The first large, almost voluptuous, mid-pink flowers appeared in early spring.