A rose that has been very commonly grown in the “blizzard zone” of the Canadian and American Midwest is the Banshee rose.
Banshee is unusually hardy for a rose of European origin, although it kills the snowline annually in my exceedingly severe district.
Its extraordinary hardiness must be attributed to its popularity and the vast territory that it now inhabits.
Other factors contributing to its popularity are extreme vigor, an excellent production of flower buds, and rapid suckering when on its roots.
Banshee Rose’s Features
Banshee also has features that make the average grower swear at it, frequently dig it out again, and lock, stock, and barrel.
The flower is an attractive pink, and the shape of the bud and the opened flower is good enough for a rose of its hardy class, but the doubleness is variable and so extreme when at its most potent that the buds frequently “ball” and never open.
What a vexation this can be; even a beginner in rose culture scarcely has to use his imagination to understand.
When the plant is well established, the proportion of double flowers that “ball” appears to be larger; sometimes, after the plant is newly set and not yet “in its stride,” a large proportion of the flowers will succeed in the opening.
The grower will, at first, think it will be an acceptable rose. However, later on, 90 percent of its blossoms may be duds.
Related: What Is The Memorial Rose?
Skinner’s Breeding Of Hardy Roses
F. L. Skinner of Dropmore, Manitoba, who started in the breeding of hardy roses many years before I did, wrote me that he had made “many hybrids” between the wild roses of his district and Banshee and that they were invariable “balers” and suitable only for the refuse heap.
However, I had already crossed Banshee with several other roses before I received his helpful letter and so far ignored his advice that I left the plants I already had to come into bloom.
My experience duplicated Mr. Skinner’s; my hybrids frequently never opened a single color.
They were even more affected by the “balling” propensity than their unfortunate, “banshee-ridden” parent. Probably they were no more double, but merely more crowded because the flower was smaller.
Related: Roses Need Winter Protection
My Hybrid Banshee Plants
Among my Banshee plants, of which I once had a long row, there appeared a bud sport, a semi-double form (about 15 petals) with a deeper pink color than its parent.
I used this one as a pollen parent one year on the species rose, Rosa Lucida, or Virginia, the plants of which had been picked up for me in Nova Scotia and were a very hardy form.
From this cross, I got three plants, all single, all hardier than Banshee, all completely fertile, and all relatively late in blooming in the rose season.
Thus, if any rose breeder wants to get the blood of the Banshee rose into suitable garden types without the risk of repeating excessive doubleness, he can do it by using my hybrid.
The plants are exceedingly vigorous and about intermediate between the two parents in general character. R. Lucida might make a better parent, for it has given good results for me in one or two other crosses.
There has been a good deal of speculation about what the correct name of the Banshee rose is, for it has been renamed right in the “blizzard country” where it has proved best adapted.
A letter received just today from a rose correspondent in the state of New York informs me that someone has recently suggested that it is none other than the famous old “Maiden’s Blush.
”When approached on the matter, this suggestion has been made before, but Mr. Skinner once denied its validity. I can confirm. The Maiden’s Blush rose is better than the flower of Banshee and was not troubled by “balling” in my climate, but the plant was so much less hardy than the plants of Banshee that they all died out within a year or two.
During the Summer of 1947, Mr. F. L. Skinner took a trip to northern Europe, visiting Sweden, among other countries. While there, he noticed the Banshee rose growing in a botanical garden under Rosa amoena Grandiflora.
44659 by Percy H. Wright