Penelope Tea Rose

Penelope Tea Rose

It has taken 2 years but my Penelope Tea Rose is finally bloomed. Sometimes these tea roses do take some encouragement to get going but once they do they are charming additions to the garden.

Now ‘Penelope’ was introduced into Australia in 1907, Bred by John Williams (1858-1928) (Australia, 1906). Introduced in Australia by Arthur Yates & Co. Ltd. in 1907 as 'Penelope'. this plant I have is a found Rose and it’s been named ‘Penelope’ for study purposes I understand a lot of people won’t care necessarily about this process but it’s an essential thing to at least consider this when growing roses. Firstly this may be the original Penelope there are 3 roses in Australia that are reported to be the true ‘Penelope’ but as we can’t trace the provenance back we are left with a few possibilities and the powers at be who are far more knowledgeable than I have yet to decide what her true name is. Hugo Roller is reported to be one of the plants circulating and Mrs Dudley Cross is another. When I get more of this beautiful rose ready for sale it going to be difficult to know what to call... Rosa Tea ‘Penelope’ but maybe XYZ as well 😅😅😅 

She has deep reddish outer petals and a beautiful creamy centre, light tea fragrance with 10-20 petals typically the plants frows to 1m tall or slightly more putting it on the smaller side for a tea rose. No matter this roses true identity its beautiful and well worth growing!

This is a beautiful rose, it can be grown as a large shrub or as a pillar. It can have short stems and 12-18 petals per bloom but is heavily fragranced and very disease resistant. We are unsure of its parentage as it was probably bred much earlier than it was released in 1951 and with Alisters passing lots of details were lost. Susan Irvine collected this rose from Tid Alston and Eve Murray. This rose has a massive spring flush but does bloom almost all year in mild climates.

Alister named so any of the roses he bred after the women in his life, 'Mrs Fred Danks' was a lady named Dorothy Twiston Williams and married Fred Danks in 1923, he was a keen plant breeder but not a gardener and that's where Dorothy came into the mix, she loved gardening and combining her husbands plants into a beautiful garden. Alister visited their garden several times per year bringing with him some of his latest daffodils and roses.

David Danks one of Dorothy's sons believed that the naming of the rose was because of Alister's admiration of her garden design and enthusiasm for displaying the plants that her husband was breeding. The rose was registered in 1951 two years after Alister's death in 1949, Dorothy enjoyed her rose for many years till she passed in 1974.

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