The death of his father and his declining health prompted Anton Chekhov to sell his Melikhovo estate near Moscow and move to Yalta in the Crimea where he built his White Dacha and planted extensive gardens.
The house was designed by L.N. Shapovalov. A fellow writer, Aleksandr Kuprin described the house as perhaps "the most original building in Yalta. It is all white, pure, easy, beautifully asymmetrical, ... with a tower, and unexpected ledges, with a glass veranda below and an open terrace above, with scattered broad and narrow windows... "
The White Dacha's gardens included tulips, hyacinths, Japanese and German irises, phloxes, lilies, carnations, lavateras, and chrysanthemums. As at Melikhovo, the design of the gardens included curving paths.
Chekhov also planted at least 68 rose cultivars. Many of his roses, carnations and chrysanthemums continued to bloom in Crimea's mild autumns and winters. In a letter to a friend, Chekhov describes summer-like weather in Yalta, declaring the late autumn days "warm, clear, dry and quiet." In another letter he notes, “There is no winter still in Yalta. The roses are in blossom."
Today, only rose banksiae lutea, planted by Chekhov in the fall of 1899, remains of the 68 types of roses the writer grew in his White Dacha gardens. In May the yellow-flowered climber banksiae lutea blooms alongside another prolific Crimean climber, Chinese Wisteria. The yellow rose and lilac wisteria are a classical pairing on Crimea's southern coast, blooming at the same time. (Banksiae lutea begins blooming earlier than Chinese Wisteria, typically in April, but continues its blooming period into May when the wisteria begins flowering.)
The Yalta garden's 68 rose cultivars are listed in another post.
Credits: First and second photos: White Dacha in 1899. Third Photo of White Dacha: By Olga-lyo - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80880581. Fourth and Fifth Photos: Association Rose Amateurs of Crimea.
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