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'Mrs. David McKee' rose Reviews & Comments
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Are there any of these plants available in the USA? I answered my own question. It is listed in the 1913 Biltmore Rose Catalog.
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The parent plant of this rose has been colonised by small black ants, which pollinate it, and defend it vigorously against pruners and other unwary souls. I think that Eric's photo of a plant 800+ km away shows similar ants. Maybe the scent is one that attracts them (aphids don't feature). My plants don't have the ants, but they're not thriving. I wonder...
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A happy symbiosis? The plant in the cemetery is wonderful! it's good to know that you and Eric both have it in safe keeping. A very young plant of "Mrs C.W. Ellis" was one of the casualties of the 'broken reticulation during horrible heatwave of 2010' event here and I must try for another.
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Not "Mrs C W ...". C WEllis was a vigorous member of the SA Rose Society, with a lot of show-bench success.
I think the plant Eric photographed was in the John Nieuwesteeg garden at Maddingley Park. I have one budded plant and one (rare) own-root one, and they're both struggling, but I'm not going to supply the ants!
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Thanks for that Margaret.
I wonder how old the plants need to be before they begin to grow more strongly. The original plant looks so very robust.
Is there still a young one in the repository at Renmark?
It is probably too late to bud roses this year, but perhaps we can try next season?
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Yes, there's a plant at Renmark, with a very young Mrs David McKee planted nearby for comparison.
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Thank you, Margaret and Billy. I had naïvely thought the ants to be native bees with inconspicuous wings. Their being colonisers makes good sense. And the Nieuwesteeg Heritage Rose Garden plant of C.W. Ellis is beautiful and vigorous, even sumptuous.
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Proc. and Bull. American Rose Society (1908) pp. 55-61
Essay on Hybridisation.
By Alex. Dickson, Acting Director of Alex. Dickson & Sons, Ltd., Royal Irish Nurseries, Newtownards, County Down.
Out of many hundreds of crosses with this rose [La France], only in one single instance did we succeed in making it produce seed, but we feel that the labour we spent was amply repaid, as the ultimate result of it was the introduction of Mrs. W. J. Grant, known to you as Belle Siebrecht, in our opinion one of the finest roses in cultivation, at least from the Britishers' standpoint. In addition to this, we have always found from practical experience, the roses descended from this particular cross have always impressed their offspring with some at least of the more prominent qualities of the parents, and it was pursuing this particular line of breeding that enabled us to produce varieties, which from a British standpoint are ideal exhibition flowers, and at the same time the plants are floriferous and of excellent constitution. In this group we might mention ... Mrs. David McKee ...
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David Ruston says this rose was a show-bench winner until the mid-1940s.
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