la vie en rose

Old garden roses bring color and fragrance to a Clinton landscape

- KELLI BOZEMAN

Ann McClellan’s mother was known for her daffodils. She had such a knack that she and her cheerful yellow blossoms once made the TV news. So it was only natural that Ann would learn to love the gardening life.

But it’s a different flowering plant that has captured Ann’s heart: the romantic, sweet-smelling rose.

“Growing roses is like eating potato chips,” Ann says. “Once you get started, you just want more and more.”

A visitor might think Ann and her husband Larry have surely gotten their fill of the fragrant flowers by now, considering that their 2-plus-acre property in Clinton is home to about 140 roses. But for these enthusiasts, there’s always a new variety to discover.

Most of the blossoms in this couple’s expansive rose garden are old garden roses—that is, they belong to a class that existed before the year 1867. Like Ann, many rose gardeners prefer these classical varieties for their hardiness, range of colors, and intense fragrance. “They smell good, and you don’t have to do a great deal to them to make them produce really pretty flowers,” Ann says.

Ann first began growing roses shortly after she and Larry got married. Living in Jackson at the time, she started with two cultivars: ‘Golden Showers,’ a yellow running rose, and ‘Blaze,’ a red rose. “That was all the space I had for roses,” she says.

In the mid-1990s, the McClellans made the move to this more rural location, upon which a midcentury-built home had been transplanted from Meadowbrook Road in Jackson when the interstate was built. The couple’s newfound acreage meant new possibilities for Ann’s gardening passion. “When we moved here, I started putting roses everywhere,” she says. “And I learned more about roses—how to plant them and where to plant them.”