Anticipation is high at Salisbury School as staff and students plant a bed of their very own rose, Salisbury Gold, and await its first golden bloom.
Principal Ellie Salcin-Watt says the specialist residential school considered a rose named after the school for its centenary in 2016 and though that didn’t happen, the idea grew and now with the rebuild of a residential/classroom block and new landscaping around it, the time seems right.
The school contacted Matthews Nurseries about new roses in its breeding programme and the possibility of naming one after the school and were given several options. Their choice is a rose with golden-yellow blooms for, as Ellie says, it’s a “gold moment”.
“We can’t wait until it flowers. The first time it buds is going to be a moment.”
About 15 of the new rose bushes will be planted at the school, which leaves 80 bare-rooted roses to be sold as a fundraiser for the development of the new plant nursery. Bare-rooted plants will be sold for $40 and any that are not sold will be potted and will cost a bit more. Anyone interested in buying Salisbury Gold can contact the school.
Much of the landscaping around the school is native plantings and Ellie says the roses will link with the some of the original plantings in the grounds that hark back to the original homestead, Bonovoree. It belonged to William and Sarah McRae who began planting the grounds in 1850.
Three very old and large camellias that were part of that garden were dug up with a digger and moved closer to the school buildings a year ago when their original site underwent development, while staff member Carolyn Shirtliff has grown cuttings from an old rose that grew under a tall cedar, to also carry part of the garden’s history into the future.
“The new roses are for the next chapter,” she says.
Carolyn is excited about Salisbury Gold and says the colour is just right for the school.
“This one changes colour from a bud when it is a deep, deep gold and ends up a faded gold. The growth is like the changes in the students in the time we have them.”
Salisbury Gold is a floribunda rose with multi-petal form and has repeat flowering in clusters. It’s described as compact and neatly growing with a light fragrance.
Meanwhile, while two of the ancient camellias have been identified as Cam. jap. Paeoniifolia and Cam. Jap. Leviathan, the third is still unknown. The old rose which is tall with a pale pink flower has not been identified yet either, but the school is keen to find out and keep the garden’s history very much alive.
