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'Herbert Brunning' rose Reviews & Comments
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Herbert John Brunning (1864–1949) was a well known rose nurseryman in East St Kilda, Melbourne, who co-founded with Alister Clark the National Rose Society of Victoria.
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Amongst others, like Ardagh, Davey, Moule, Simpson, Oliver and Pockett.
I love the photograph of Brunning, Stewart and Clark in the 'Herbert Brunning' file where the three men are having enormous fun with roses.
I also love the 1940 reference for 'Herbert Brunning' which says the petals "actually crackle like crisp cabbage". Do you find they have more substance than the norm?
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You'd have to be up at dawn to hear the crackle but the (thirty-two) petals are thick. The Morwell (Nieuwesteeg) plant is the same as the Mistydowns one so identification seems secure.
Herbert Brunning's grave is in the St Kilda cemetery near his nursery and close to my place. Easy to decide what rose should be on his grave.
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St. Kilda. Aah.... you have reminded me of a piece I wrote for the Heritage Roses in Australia journal 26-4-22. (this is the wrong place, but there is no author or rose file for Blogg - and I just can't help myself).
I'D LIE BENEATH THE SHADOW OF A ROSE.
Mark not my grave with stone or sculptur'd urn, I want no labour'd art where I repose;
When life is past, and I to dust return I'd lie beneath the shadow of a Rose.
Plant me a Rose my resting place to hide! The crystal drops of dew her petals weep, Will seem like tears she could not brush aside, While at her feet her lover lies asleep.
John Kendrick Blogg.
These wonderful familiar lines were written by John Kendrick Blogg, who was born in Toronto, Canada and migrated to Australia in 1877, (see "Australian Rose Annual" 1934-18 & 1937-133). He lived in Surry Hills, Victoria and was a good friend of B. V. Rossi, who wrote "Modern Roses in Australasia" published in 1930; and the much-loved editor of the "Australian Rose Annual", Mr. T. A. Stewart. He died on September 25, 1936, aged 85. In HRA 3-1-14, 1981 it was incorrectly stated that John Kendrick Blogg was a pseudonym for Mr. T. A. Stewart. John Kendrick Blogg was indeed a very real and sensitive man who wrote many beautiful lines about the rose in the early issues of the "Australian Rose Annual".
I was therefore appalled to see the photograph that Margaret Willison sent me when I asked her if she could find his grave. I imagined that someone would have carried out his wishes so that he could "lie beneath the shadow of a rose". But he lies in St. Kilda Cemetery (Weslyan BO 286) under a heavy slab of stone with not a breath of a rose petal within cooee. The grave desperately calls for some soft old summer-flowering rose towering over to drop its untidy leaves and perfumed petals in continual acknowledgment of the love that JKB gave to it. However, I know already that the St. Kilda Cemetery Board would not allow it, there is no room, and it would make a mess. How sad, how awfully sad! Makes me wonder what rose I would choose for my grave - if I had a choice.
Patricia Routley
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Most rose poetry is so ghastly you never want to see another line of it. But Mr Blogg's lines do him and you credit. After I've found Herbert Brunning's grave I'll go and see JK Blogg's.
A friend of mine has found the Kew Cemetery grave of the wonderful Lesbia Harford. She had a fatal weakness for Irishmen with blue eyes, so I thought of planting 'Irish Elegance' there. But her poetry forbids it: rosiness to her mind is artificial, lilac is real.
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Herbert Brunning's grave will not be growing the rose Alister Clark dedicated to him. It is covered by a slab of polished and impervious granite. Adjacent graves show that his brother and partner, a daughter, a son, his wife died long before he did. St Kilda cemetery may be the biggest accumulation of expensive masonry in Australia. Nearby are Boyds and a'Becketts, possibly reluctant neighbours. In waving distance, the monument to Baron von Müller with lines of Schiller inscribed in gold.
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Baron von Muller was the person who decided it would be a good idea to spread blackberries in Australia, in case people got hungry. Not clever.
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