Bloomin' roses

Posted on Saturday, 2nd November 2019 by Janine Rizzetti

From our Facebook Page on 26 October 2019

So how are your roses doing? Not as well as Mr Rossi’s I bet.

Here is Ivanhoe’s B.V. Rossi in front of his house and nursery ‘Roselands’ at 37 Ford Street Ivanhoe, probably in the 1920s. On the left is Mrs Janet Morris, with her two daughters Ina and Gwen Morris. B. V. Rossi is standing at the rear.

Benevenuto Vincent Rossi was born in 1860 in Italy and came to Australia in 1887 as a trained lithographer. After establishing a nursery in Coburg, he shifted to a six-acre property at 37 Ford Street Ivanhoe in 1913 where he established Roselands.

Over his career, he won National Rose Society Awards, 120 Championships, 150 Gold and Silver Medals and over 2000 first prize awards. He wrote ‘Modern Roses in Australia’ and he propagated the thornless ‘Firefly’ rose. (An excellent idea, I think, after doing battle with my own roses which I wish I had staked before the wind got to them. I wonder if you can still procure it?)

Rossi Park in Ivanhoe is named after B.V. Rossi and his family. It stands in Ford St, opposite where Roselands was located.

The rose garden in Heidelberg Park, facing Jika Street is just coming into its first flush of roses. Why not stop on a Sunday between 2.00 and 5.00 to smell the roses, and come across the road to visit the Old Heidelberg Courthouse Museum. Visit our Busy Bee Signature Quilt Exhibition, and find the flowers named on the quilt!