I planted this rose two years ago, and it flowered for the first time past Spring. The blooms are lovely, showing a great delicacy and charm. The plant is incredibly vigorous and it's starting to grow even rampantly. Surely it deserves more attention.
I am puzzled how a nicked / discovered / recovered cutting could have got registered. I am also puzzled at how a parentage could be quoted. R. gigantea, R. brunonni and R. banksiae normalis are all mentioned in the references. The date of discovery had to be sometime after 1983 when the University of Genoa was managing Hanbury.
I'm not sure wether the reference to Brunonii and attributed to Martyn Rix is accurate. He identified this rose as Banksiae x gigantea as seen in 'Conservatory and Indoor plants' vol 1 page 260, written by Phillips and Rix. This rose is a chance seedling not a bred rose and never had a name, I don't see why it can't be attributed a name of the discoverer, it continues to exist because of her.
We are not sure when she found it, it was possibly in the 70's or 80's, we will ask her. She is in her 80's and has a fantastic garden in the hills behind Cagnes-sur-Mer. Charles Q-R has taken a group to visit and he is quite smitten with the garden and her, I believe. She is a delight. She is friends with the Hanbury family which is how she came to know the garden there.
It was really lovely to see you both on Sunday, thank you for coming and thank you very much pour les cadeaux!
