Rosarian, Kylie Dunn from the Orange Botanical Gardens Heritage Rose Garden visited Bishop’s Lodge Heritage Garden last week as part of a wider garden tour.

Travelling from Orange to Adelaide, Ms Dunn stopped in to visit with Anne Longworth and Coleen Houston, two of the local avid historians and rosarians involved in the Bishop’s Lodge buildings and gardens.

“I am heading around to visit the other gardens in the area, from Mildura, then Melbourne and Barossa; all gardens from Orange to Adelaide,” Ms Dunn said.

“It is in a bid to gain as much knowledge as I can, and research.

“It will be interesting to see if this can help me identify the different types of rose types we have in Orange, and the adequate care and treatment for each.”

Her visit follows Coleen Houston’s attendance of the Heritage Rose conference at Orange when the ‘Species Roses’ were added to the Orange Botanic Garden.

“Species are the wild roses from which our present-day roses evolved in the Northern Hemisphere,” Coleen said.

Ms Dunn is pictured in front of Bishop’s Lodge Garden’s Cecile Brunnep Polyantha from 1881, an old-fashioned buttonhole sized, double pink blooms in perfect Hybrid Tea form with a soft apple fragrance. With her are Anne Longworth and Coleen Houston who enjoyed the lively discussion on ‘all things roses’.

The guest left Hay with a map of the Bishop’s Lodge Garden layouts and some heritage sweet pea seeds.

This article appeared in The Riverine Grazier, 9 April 2025.