Roses at Wightwick pre-date Mawson's involvement with designing the garden, we know that 400 roses were planted on a single occasion in the 1890's. It's not clear where these beds of roses would have been as the garden has changed so much since those early days when Theodore and Flora laid out the garden to their own design.
However when Mawson took over the half completed plans of Alfred Parsons in 1905 he used roses to set off the focal areas of the formal garden and the terrace with its wooden balustrade. The roses which bloom here now are 'Ingrid Bergmann' with its deep passion red, 'Constance Finn' and 'Iceberg' which is strikingly white.
The eight beds of roses you walk through on the path towards the house we're restored in 2012, the diamond jubilee year of Elizabeth II, which is why we chose 'Queen Elizabeth' as one of the varieties to plant. This planting scheme is very clear in old photographs of the area, although at that time there wasn't a yew hedge on the top of the wall.