When Garden Clinic Club member Jan Ingram lost her son, she created a beautiful and expansive rose garden to honour him. Before long it was raising funds for sick children... Libby Cameron reports.
As I walked from the car to the front door at La Casa de las Rosas, in Castle Hill, NSW, I knew I was in for a treat. The perfume that filled the air — the fragrance of roses mixed with heliotrope — was intoxicating. And this was winter — I could only imagine what it would be like in spring!
The background to this special garden is inspiring. The owner-creator, Jan Ingram, cared for her son, Greg, for 20 years after a hit-and-run accident left him a quadriplegic in 1984. During this time, gardening became a pleasant diversion for precious spare moments, and Jan often enjoyed being out there with Greg. When Greg died in 2004, Jan found that the garden was the place where she could attain peace of mind.
As we wander through this extensive garden, Jan admits that during this difficult time she really didn't know what to do with herself. It wasn't until she saw young car-accident victim, Sophie Delezio on television that an idea presented itself: Jan would use her garden to help raise money for sick children. She would make her garden a showpiece and open it to the public to raise funds for the Children's Hospital at Westmead.
So suddenly, there was a lot of work to be done. With a team of friends, who call themselves the Dragonfly Ladies (after a motif they came across and liked), and with the help of her partner, Sergio, Jan began creating the wonderful rose garden that acts as a showpiece to honour Greg's life and that raises funds for children in hospital. The project took five frantic months and required a few late nights. In fact, Jan reveals that on some nights Sergio held a light while she worked on the garden in the dark!
The original garden was an easy-care native mix, much of which has now been replaced, except for one corner where cycads and Xanthorrheas thrive. After a huge make-over, the garden is laid out as a series of walks, each bed slightly different in its colours and plant combinations. There's a blue garden, where a blue porcelain cat stands in memory to Jacko, a well-loved pet. The main feature here is a huge Rosa 'Veilchenblau', under-planted with heliotrope, salvias and blue irises. Then there is the thyme corner, where a semicircle of stone paving is planted with thyme, and a purple trellis plays backdrop to several iceberg roses. Jan says she rescued these roses from a throw-out table at a hardware store and nurtured them back to good health before planting them.
Jan has a cream and white garden with a backdrop of Michelia maudii. "This is for my mother," she explains, "Her name was Edith Maude. Beneath it grows a very happy Pieris japonica, tuberoses, cream foxgloves, and the heavenly perfume that fills the air comes from a bank of Osmanthus fragrans. There are lilies and cream scillas under the surface, waiting for their season.
Shrubs including daphne, camellias and gardenias fill the beds while at ground level hellebores thrive, and spring bulbs are just starting to appear. Jan has hanging baskets filled with healthy fuchsias, and a shade house with pots of slipper orchids, fuchsias and streptocarpus in flower.
Jan's rose collection is vast, each one chosen for its colour, flowering or perfume, and each one with a story of its origin. Favourites include the huge blooms of 'Souvenir de Louis Armade', dainty 'Heidisommer', white 'Fabulous', as well as 'Renae', which never stops flowering, 'Seduction' and 'Blushing Pink Iceberg'.
As we pass a corner block on a sloping site with a swimming pool that Jan describes as her 'large water feature', I realise how her passion has kept her going. She describes herself as a 'mad gardener' and admits to joining Sergio for the odd nursery crawl, spending a day or two trawling nurseries and arriving home with a car jam packed with exciting purchases. She agonises about colour combinations, and although every square centimetre of her garden is planted with shrubs, roses, and ground covers, Jan has punnets of russell lupins, delphiniums and pansies just waiting to be planted!
Plant Notes - Jan's favourites
Common name: Fuchsia Plant name: Fuchsia hybrids Description: Soft wooded, evergreen shrubs with delicate hanging flowers from midsummer to autumn. Hundreds of named cultivars are available in shades of pink, red and purple. They are single, double and heavily ruffled. Size: 50cm - 1m Special comments: Jan grows magnificent fuchsias in hanging baskets in a sheltered area. Symbols: Part shade, shade extra water in summer, wind protection.
Common name: Cherry Pie Plant name: Heliotropium arborescens 'Lord Roberts' Description: Fast growing shrub with attractive, wrinkled leaves and fragrant, purple flower heads in late spring to autumn. Likes humidity and some shade in very hot areas. Size: 75mm Special comments: Boasts a lovely, vanilla fragrance. Leave frost-affected foliage and cut back in spring to protect new leaves at base. Symbols: Full sun, part shade, drought hardy, frost tender.
Common name: Lily of the Valley bush Plant name: Pieris japonica Description: Attractive, slow-growing shrub with sprays of cream flowers in late winter to spring. Some cultivars have a delightful, pink new growth. They grow best in a cool, sheltered position with some humidity. Size: 1 - 2m Special comments: Good in acid soil with azaleas and rhododendrons. Symbols: Part shade, shade, frost tolerant.
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