Yellow Banksia Rose

The yellow Banksiae rose was first introduced to England in the early 1800s. It has been a firm favorite ever since, due to it's delightful habit of producing 1000s of flowers, on long, almost thornless canes. These photos shows one in my garden, growing up and around a barbaque chimney.It is growing on a large picket fence, along with a bright red Camillia, and when both are out in bloom together the effect is stunning.

Pruning you banksiae rose

With most roses, you prune early winter. However, with climbers, and the banksiae in particular, this is a mistake. They produce their next seasons flowers on older wood, and if you prune during the winter, you will have few flowers for next summer.

So prune them as soon as the main flowering is over. This will usually be the first month of summer....they are an early flowering rose. The photos on this page were taken 1st October (that is in NZ, so that is spring here), and the rose is in almost full bloom already.

Training your banksiae

These are extremely easy to train. Their exceptional vigor, and virtually thornless whippy canes, makes it easy to train along a fence, up an old dead tree, or over a garden shed. I have mine trained (well, sort of trained ~ it has a mind of it's own) along the top of a 6 foot high picket fence.

Its a simple matter of weaving the canes inbetween the pickets, and trimming the wayward ones into submission!

The banksia flower

These are in clusters, small flowers of pale yellow. They don't appear to fade with age, as many of the older yellow roses do, and they have a slight fruity fragrance. Although each flower may not have a stong perfume, when you multipy that by several thousand, then the scent is enough to perfume an entire area of your garden.

The banksiae can grow huge, given the right conditions (and enough time). For an example of that, take a look at the worlds largest rose bush.

Yes, you gessed it, it's a banksiae, and is located in Tombstone, Arizona. That is the white Banksiae, the rosa banksiae banksiae which is very similar and closely related to the yellow banksiae (rose banksiae lutea) which is shown on this page.