Replacement roses planted at cemetery

Heritage Roses Otago members Jean Grace (left) and Rosalind Andrew prepare netting and stakes to keep rabbits from attacking newly-planted roses at the Dunedin Northern Cemetery yesterday.

About 20 gardeners distributed 50 roses throughout the cemetery in the morning and erected protection for them in the group's first planting of the season.

The work is part of the ongoing replacement of more than 500 roses which were sprayed with herbicide and killed in 2016.

It was never conclusively proven who sprayed the flowers.

Group convener Fran Rawling said it took a long time for the soil to recover and be suitable for replanting, which started again last year.

"We'll have another planting in August where we'll plant another 25 or so."

The group and the Dunedin City Council would celebrate the re-planting in December when the plants bloomed.