Magazine  (Dec 2019)  Page(s) 6. Vol 41, No. 4.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley,  Letter to the Editor.
How does everyone prune their Sunny South?  I have often recalled that big vaseful of long-stemmed Sunny South blooms that B. V. Rossi published in his 1930 Modern Roses in Australasia, p. 279, and think I know now how to get them. One fells a tree onto the bush! If you haven’t got a handy tree to bash it to smithereens, then prune the bush right to the base. It has worked for me this year, but I am hesitant about any plans to prune it this way every year. I am hoping the plant will tell me.

Article (newspaper)  (May 2010)  Page(s) 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley: Rob and I travelled up and down the South West highway for many years and I had often noticed a tall rose bush at the old school site at Yornup. In 2000 I stopped and looked around. There were three roses. The southern one was a thorny old red hybrid tea, the middle was the tall bush, and the northern one was the rootstock rose ‘Manetti’. Later, only the tall bush struck for me. It did not take me too many years to realise that this was the famous Sunny South that Alister Clark had bred in Victoria in 1918. It is a distinctive rose with about 18 petals. They are light pink paling slightly in the center and they open widely to show the stamens. The squarish petals are arranged at different levels, so the end effect is of a wavy-petalled rose. It is a simple and charming flower and once seen, it is never forgotten. The other dead give-away to ‘Sunny South’ is its tall growth, up to 8 feet high and I think the original bush at Yornup is probably 10 feet. It is still growing there, blooming and waving happily at passing cars – no water, no ferty, no pruning – for at least 26 years now, for the little Yornup school which opened in 1929 was closed in 1984 and relocated to Bridgetown in 1996 in anticipation of the construction of a heritage precinct which never eventuated. Aaagh – the irony of it all. Have a look for this old heritage rose the next time you pass. It is on the western side of the highway and just north of Yornup, opposite the hall. The breeder Alister Clark left his records book out in the garden in later life, but for once, we actually know the parentage of ‘Sunny South’ because he wrote in the 1928 Australian Rose Annual “I have found Herr Peter Lambert’s ‘Gustav Grunerwald’ a fine seed parent and using the pollen of ‘Betty Berkeley’ on it I got ‘Sunny South’, one of the few roses in my garden that I would not like to alter in any one way”. Alister “gave” this rose to the Rose Society of Victoria and for every rose that was sold, the profits went into the Society’s coffers. It was promoted as a hedge rose and one had to plant a lot of them to make a hedge, so the Rose Society made a mint of money from it. For me it seems too sparsely wooded to make a hedge, even closely planted. But it was very popular in its day and went all around the world.

Book  (2 Nov 2003)  Page(s) 20.  
 
Barbara May and Jane Zammit.  Rookwood Cemetery Roses.  
The following roses have been identified at Rookwood, primarily in the old and Heritage listed areas  Sunny South

Book  (Dec 1998)  Page(s) 574.  
 
Sunny South Large-flowered/Hybrid Tea. Clark (Australia) 1918. 'Gustave Grünerwald' x 'Betty Berkeley'... This and 'Lorraine Lee' are Alister Clark's best roses... [flowers are] rose pink, flushed with carmine and have a pronounced yellow base to each petal... This variety is sometimes classed as a Grandiflora.

Book  (1994)  Page(s) 122.  
 
Page 84: There is no mistaking 'Sunny South' once you have seen it. Of all the roses he bred or grew at Glenara it was Alister's favourite. At the time of its release it had achieved tremendous popularity. Growing to over two metres, it made a fine hedge, with its large, semi-double pink flowers "flushed carmine..."
Page 122: Sunny South Hybrid Tea. Clark 1918. 'Gustav Grunerwald' x 'Betty Berkeley'. Large, semi-single, fragrant blooms, pale pink, flushed carmine on a very tall bush... Alister's favourite of all the roses he grew

Book  (Sep 1993)  Page(s) 390.  
 
Sunny South Large-flowered. 'Gustav Grünerwald' x 'Betty Berkeley'... For years one of Australia's favorite roses... it is every bit as tall and vigorous as 'Queen elizabeth'. Some think it a better rose: the blooms are a softer blend of pink and cream.

Book  (Jun 1992)  Page(s) 328.  
 
Sunny South Hybrid Tea. Alister Clark 1918

Magazine  (Jun 1951)  Page(s) 2. trimester, p. 55.  
 
[From the article "Le Rosier sur la Côte d'Azur", by Joseph Baccialone, Ingénieur Horticole, Chef de Service des Jardins de la Ville d'Antibes, pp. 46-59]
Parmi les rosiers de Bengale nous citons : — Suny south, rose, très vigoureux.

Book  (1951)  Page(s) 95.  
 
Mrs. Simon Ross, Geelong, Vic. Pink Roses in My Garden.
For its exquisite foliage no less than for its decorative semi-double blooms, I like Sunny South, especially in the tight bud stage.  It is a great stand-by in many arrangements.

Book  (1950)  Page(s) 49.  
 
N. T. Scoble, Curator of St. Kilda Parks and Gardens.  Roses for Shaded Situations. 
One of my first selections for such a position would be Sunny South.  The flowers are thin enough to open with a minimum of sun, and their colour is such that they will light up a whole corner.