(1997)  Page(s) 253.  
 
‘Agnes Barclay’ – A fragrant Hybrid Tea released in 1927 and described in Modern Roses as “yellow and reddish salmon”. Alister’s records suggest that it is a cross between ‘Comtesse Dusy’ and ‘Crépuscule’ and a coloured advertisement dated 1927 shows a semi-double soft salmon-pink rose with marked yellow stamens.

(1997)  Page(s) 250.  Includes photo(s).
 
p250. Australia Felix. HT 1931(sic). ‘Jersey Beauty’ x ‘La France’. Small semi-double, cupped, fragrant flowers of silvery pink, on a low bush. Very recurrent. Plant came to us (without a name) from the Alstons and Eve Murray. Fits the description of ‘Australia Felix’ and distinctive shape of petals corresponds with old photographs. ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘Fancy Free’ seem to be similar, and until our plant was identified I called it ‘Alister Clark’s Pink Floribunda’.

p226 Picture.

(1997)  Page(s) 250.  Includes photo(s).
 
p226 Picture

p250. Baxter Beauty – Sport of ‘Lorraine Lee’ and not registered by Alister himself. Described by T. A. Stewart as follows: “originated at Baxter, Victoria. The colours of this rose are most difficult to describe. There are a number of shades, varying from a light yellow to sulphur, overlaid on the outside of the petals with splashes of light salmon pink… It has all the good qualities of ‘Lorraine Lee’ in growth and winter flowering propensities.”

(1997)  Includes photo(s).
 
p95 You would look a long way to find better border roses than ‘Borderer’ and ‘Suitor’.

p107 There were memorable gardens visited in search of Alister Clark’s roses. We went to the lovely garden at Delatite near Mansfield, home of the Ritchie family, one winter’s day. In the rose garden – a formal rose garden with box hedges and gravel paths – was a little rose growing, not more than 30 cm tall. Sylvia Ritchie did not know its name. It had been in the garden for a very long time. It was a soft salmon-pink, she said, had a very unusual petal shape and bloomed continuously. I took cuttings and promised to let her know if, when I saw the flower, I was able to identify it. The cuttings all took and when the first little pink blooms appeared I was delighted with it, but had never seen it before.
Then one day in spring I was invited to tea by Mrs. Florence Brooke, a legendary old lady of well over eighty who lives in a dark, rambling old mansion set in one of Victoria’s truly historic gardens outside Daylesford – a garden famous for its fine and rare trees planted well over a century ago by Mrs. Brooke’s grandfather. …….. It is a wonderful garden – undoubtedly one of the finest in victoria. Giant trees form the basis of it. A tapestry hedge surrounds the circular drive with a towering oak in the centre. Aquilegias had naturalised under the trees. There were few flowers – this was not a garden for flowers – but we found the bed of …… and I took cuttings. Then, with the rain still tumbling down, we visited the Kitchen Garden. And there was my little pink rose from Delatite in full flower. “It’s Alister Clark’s ‘Borderer’.” Said Mrs. Brooke. “I’ve grown it for years’. …….. We planted ‘Borderer’ in the Alister Clark Garden as a border round a circular bed …..

p215 I visited Banongill at the end of the season when little was in flower. But ‘Borderer’ was still putting on a good display…….

p226 Picture No. 5

p247 Borderer – Good for edging a bed. Small, double, scented salmon-pink blooms throughout the season.

p250 List 1 (a list of those AC’s which have been identified with as great a certainty as we can hope for).
Borderer – Polyantha. 1918. ‘Jersey Beauty’ seedling. Semi-double to double salmon-pink. Very low-growing. Excellent border rose. Found at Delatite and at Wombat Park, Daylesford.

(1997)  Page(s) 87.  
 
In the first place, the people who knew him [Alister Clark] as adults are now mostly over eighty. In the second place, there are no real records. ..... Most of the descriptions are scanty in the extreme: ‘Bright Boy’ – dazzling red blooms, tall vigorous grower’ (Hazlewood’s catalogue 1941.) How many red roses would fit this description?

(1997)  Page(s) 234.  
 
....Of course, I didn’t leave the spaces reserved for it empty. Instead I planted the ‘Brundrett Centenary’ Rose, bred by the Brundrett family nursery to commemorate one hundred years of growing and selling roses for Australian gardeners. A landscaping rose, having ‘Sea Foam’ in its ancestry, it bears clusters of pink blooms on a low-growing procumbent bush.

(1997)  
 
p215 In a letter of Alister’s I found reference to the fact that ‘Edith Clark’, ‘Busybody’ and ‘Peggy Bell’ were doing well in Dettman’s garden. Hugh Dettman is long dead. So I rang his daughter and obtained permission to visit his one-time garden. The house had been let ever since his death. It is a rare tenant who cares for the garden. These had not. Of this once loved and well-tended garden nothing remained save for a tangle of rank grasses and weeds, a few tired and dejected rose bushes …. I took cuttings…… ‘Busybody’ would be easier [to identify] – “rich, orange-yellow buttonhole rose” – but when my cuttings took, I found nothing that fitted that description.

p252. ‘Lady Huntingfield’ – H.T. 1937. ‘Busybody’ (Clark rose) x ?.

(1997)  Page(s) 62.  
 
(at Camnethan Homestead, Smeaton, Victoria – visiting Louie Wilson) ……She shook her head sadly and explained that there was no garden left. She was ninety-five years old and the garden had been made by her late husband’s grandfather. On a hasty calculation I estimated that that put it back well into the last century. ….. Louie was happy for me to take cuttings of … and the only other surviving rose, a cheerful cherry-red with Tea rose foliage, which was also in full flower on a bush the size of a small tree. This one, Louie said, gave her great joy as she was too old now to go into the garden, but could see it from the window.

(1997)  Page(s) 232.  
 
Mrs. Fitzhardinge, working in Sydney in the 1920s and 1930s, bred some ten or so roses which were at the time highly regarded. Two only are now available, and even they have to be sought out in specialist rose nurseries. ‘Lubra’....and ‘Warrawee’.... An interest in Australian history manifested itself in the naming of some of her roses:” ‘Captain Bligh’ and ....

(1997)  
 
p147 ....of the Australian rose ‘Carabella’ which is hardly ever out of flower.

p230 Then I made the acquaintance of ‘Carabella’ ‘Cara Bella’ her breeder called her. She came as a gift in a parcel of roses from South Australia with a note saying simply: “Try this. It’s good.”. So I did try it. And it is good. In fact, for length and continuity of flowering, it is one of the best in the garden. It has a strange little flower, pale pink and white, in shape more like an azalea bloom than a rose - but its little flowers are borne in great clusters and for months on end. The foliage is plentiful, light green and attractive – and there are almost no thorns. If I had room for more hedges, I would plant a hedge of ‘Carabella’. It grows tall but doesn’t mind being cut back. In fact, it doesn’t seem to mind anything much. I grew it at Bleak House, where it had inadequate drainage and stood for months with its feet in a bog. Where other roses would have pined away, it soldiered bravely on. Where I grow it at Erinvale, at the top of the Rugosa Bank, it has insufficient water and is exposed to north wind. It is impervious to this and, backed by a hedge of French lavender (Lavandula dentata), which also blooms for months on end, is one of the stand-bys of the garden. ‘Carabella’s manifold virtues led me to enquire about her breeder. I could find little. His name was Riethmuller and he lived in Sydney, at Turramurra. As is the case with all of our rose breeders except Alister Clark, he seems to have regarded rose breeding as a hobby, for he released few roses – perhaps twenty. Most of them are now lost.