In 1915 a wounded digger from Adelaide was repatriated to the Army Hospital at Keswick.
He brought back with him a small rosemary bush dug up from the slopes and ravines of the Anzac Cove and it was planted in the hospital grounds.
For decades small sprigs of the digger’s rosemary were worn to honour the fallen on Anzac and Armistice days and after the Repatriation Hospital was established during WW2 at Daw Park SA, cuttings were taken and it was grown into a hedge on the hospital grounds.
This history was only discovered by David Lawry OAM, Founder of the AoH Project, when as a landscaper in the late 1980’s he was inadvertently removing part of it during renovations and the hospital gardener told him of its origin.
Worried that it might all be lost he took cuttings and kept a number of them growing in his native nursery to conserve the plant for posterity.
In 2004 at the launch of the Avenues of Honour Project during the TREENET Symposium at Adelaide University’s Waite Arboretum the delegates planted all of these in symbolic anticipation of the thousands of trees that would be planted across Australia in the decades ahead.
From this 2004 planted hedge, cuttings were provided to the nursery industry and official labels produced. Subsequently the sale of each nursery-grown Gallipoli Rosemary, provides a royalty to the Avenues of Honour project.
You can download a PDF list of growers: Gallipoli Rosemary Growers
L: newly planted Gallipoli Rosemary framing the newly planted War Memorial Oak progeny, April 2015
R: April 2020
Mwaka 1915 mchimbaji mmoja aliyejeruhiwa kutoka Adelaide alipelekwa kwenye Hospitali ya Jeshi huko Keswick. Alileta kichaka kidogo cha rosemary kilichochimbwa kwenye mteremko wa Anzac Cove na kupandwa katika uwanja wa hospitali. Kwa miongo kadhaa matawi madogo ya rosemary ya mchimbaji yalivaliwa kuwaheshimu waliokufa katika siku za Anzac na Armistice, na baada ya Hospitali ya Uhamisho kuanzishwa wakati wa Vita Kuu ya Pili ya Dunia huko Daw Park, vipande vilichukuliwa na kukua kuwa ua kwenye uwanja wa hospitali. David Lawry, mwanzilishi wa mradi wa AHA, aliamua kuondoa sehemu ya ardhi hiyo wakati wa ukarabati wa hospitali hiyo. Aliogopa kwamba huenda mimea hiyo yote ingepotea, kwa hiyo akachukua vipande na kuweka baadhi ya mimea hiyo ikikua katika chumba chake cha kuzaliana ili kuhifadhi mimea hiyo kwa ajili ya vizazi vijavyo. Katika uzinduzi wa Avenues of Honour Project mnamo 2004, wakati wa Mkutano wa TREENET katika Chuo Kikuu cha Adelaide, Waite Arboretum, wajumbe walipanda hizi zote kwa matarajio ya ishara ya maelfu ya miti ambayo ingepandwa kote Australia katika miongo ijayo. Katika mwaka wa 2004 mimea hiyo ilitengenezwa na kuuzwa kwa makampuni ya kulima na kuuzwa kwa makampuni ya kuuza bidhaa za asili. Baadaye mauzo ya kila nursery-kulimwa Gallipoli Rosemary, hutoa royalties kwa Avenues ya Mradi wa Heshima. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika makala ya ""Kulima kwa ajili ya Usalama wa Wananchi wa Gallipoli"" (Kulima kwa ajili ya Usalama wa Wananchi wa Gallipoli), mimea ya ""Kulima kwa ajili ya Usalama wa Wananchi wa Gallipoli"" (Kulima kwa ajili ya Usalama wa Wananchi wa Gallipoli) ni ya kawaida."