And this is the family who brought it from Scotland.

Of course I couldn't live this place without the pot with this rose :) now I'm thinking how deep her roots could go and how invasive they could be since I have a thought to plant it in close proximity to our pool and thus water pipes. Sure enough I won't let it grow THAT big, not even near...

This rose is almost unbelievable. I'm not sure I can even call it beautiful, although it must be during its spring bloom. I'm so glad I don't need to care for it!

Natasha, that is incredible, and a true Ripley's Believe or Not that I didn't know existed. She may be old Lady Banks, but she's got a lot of life in her yet--just look at that new green cane. Thanks for posting photos of this curiosity, and good luck with the rose you grow. Diane

Thank you so much for taking the time to put this photo essay together. I especially enjoyed the pictures of new canes emerging.

I'd expect in Tombstone that fallen petals become almost instant potpourri.

Thank you so much, truly impressive!

Jane

Oh yes, there is a lot of life in her... new growth everywhere. It was interesting to see new shoots from really old old barked trunk. This is not the rose that you need to hack the bush to renew its life. This one is very happy to be on its own.

Jackie, your Lady Banks is stunning ! I wish I have such happy roses as you do :)

This is just super neat to see! Thanks for sharing. I have never seen a climbing rose in real life that is bigger than 20 feet. The trunk is impressive!

So nice to see! Thank you for sharing it with us.

How old is that rose now? I used to live in Phx and remember going to see it a few times.

As far as I know it was planted in 1885 from cutting. It is now about 8000 square feet.

Natasha how cool that you got to see it. I have seen pics of it in bloom and it is pretty.

How amazing! I read about this one in Wikipedia (my old hobby of flicking through encyclopedias reading about all sorts of stuff that sounds interesting has gotten even easier with the internet:) but they only had a couple of pics. Its great to hear about it from someone who seen the real thing.

Living history - thank you.... and great pictures to go with the story...

I never made it to Tombstone, but I should like to have done so.. as to be honest, I'm just as interested in the history of how and why this rose came to be planted, it seems such an anomaly, so I like to try and put things into context..

I think the brief potted history is that young Mrs Gee had to move there from what I gather was a comfortable home in Scotland.. still very much the British Empire, but because of her husband's mining interests, she was forced to move to what must have been a semi desert wild west town, notorious for outlaws, bandits and still with renegade Apache Indians roaming the country under Geronimo..

...Going anywhere without a revolver and shotgun would have been unwise... perhaps in the town as well... the famous Gunfight occurred just 4 years before...

...An unenviable culture shock for Mrs Gee, and I wonder too how those rose cuttings were still alive after their journey from Scotland... quite amazing...she apparently planted the cuttings with a friend whose lodgings she was staying in..

...Too late though for Wyatt Earp, but I bet he would have liked to have hung the Clanton's from those branches, if he had had the opportunity...

There was a "silver rush" a few years before that time the rose was planted which may have drew the family there. Here is an article and a you tube video that really shows the size of it.

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/16/303634602/unique-rose-bush-graces-arizona-desert-town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlODpa-NBTU

Pictures of this rose always amaze me! I like to use them to demonstrate to people that roses are NOT hard to grow and can indeed survive very well on total neglect. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, Marlorena, for this story. Since we didn't have anybody there to
tell us the story, you made me curious :) Here is what I found:

The Rose
Tree Inn, one of the first adobe buildings constructed in Tombstone, was built by A.C.
and Alice Robertson in 1880 for the use of offices and a boarding house for the
Vizina Mining Company. In 1885, a newly married couple from Scotland, Henry and
Mary Gee, lived in the boarding house. While Henry, a mining engineer was away
at work, Mary spent her time mostly being homesick for her native Scotland.
However, she did make one friend, the caretaker at the Rose Tree Inn, one
Amelia Adamson

When Henry
and Mary built a permanent home, Mary’s family sent her a box of plant
cuttings from her native home, including a white Lady Banksias Rose. After
planting several in her yard, she gave a cutting of the rose to her friend
Amelia at the Rose Tree Inn. Together, they planted the cutting on the patio
and despite the desert heat, it began to thrive.

When the Vizina Mine shut down, the
building, with its rose bush in the back, became a hotel and in 1930, Ethel
Macia, the daughter of original builders, A.C. and Alice Robertson took over
the inn. By this time, the rose bush, so out of place in the Arizona desert,
had grown to a "rose tree,” and was soon hailed as "The World's
Largest Rose" by an entertaining Robert Ripley.

Today, the building, still owned by
the Macia family, serves as a small museum. In back, the Rose Tree now covers
an area of over 8,000 square feet, and holds the title of the world’s largest
rose tree in the Guinness Book Of World Records. The museum also holds a
number of historic artifacts and mining displays.

Mr. Devre
(current owner) was born and raised in Tombstone and he and his family go all the way back to
the beginning of the town. He is one of only two people still living that has
first hand knowledge of the gun fight and the real truth about it, as well as
the town’s rich and unbelievable history. His family knew the Earps, Clantons
and the Mclaury’s. Mr. Devre’s is a Geologist by trade and is on the Tombstone
historical society.

The museum curator contends that all Lady Banks roses growing in the U.S. today are descendants of the Tombstone Rose. Who knows...

Tombstone has more luck with climate, than Phoenix Valley... Tombstone’s elevation is a bit more than twice that of the Valley and,
in an average year, it gets roughly twice as much rain as we get around
here. And of course the heat is not that bad for that long periods of time... I guess it's a great place to grow roses :)