TOMBSTONE ROSE BUSH IS GUINESS BOOK RECORD HOLDER

If you want to visit Tombstone's real Shady Lady then you just have to
venture off the main street of town for an experience you probably will
never forget.

This Shady Lady however is a Rose tree that has become famous as the worlds' largest.

When one enters the Rose Tree Museum located in historic downtown
Tombstone, Arizona they are given a post card picture of "The World's
Largest Rose Bush."

Scope Photos by Harold Merton

That picture was made during its blooming period one April.

The rose is a white Lady Banksia variety who's root was sent to America from Scotland in 1885 and planted in the patio area of an inn by two ladies as a token of friendship. A Scottish girl, Mary Gee, came to Tombstone to build a home. Her family sent her a box of shrubs including several rooted shoots of the Lady Banksia Rose. She gave one of those roots to a Mrs. Adamson who owned the home at the time.

The bush was originally planted to climb over the woodshed on the property but when the bush grew larger the husband of a later owner, a Mr. Macia, tore down the woodshed and built a trellis system that has been expanded continually ever since that time. But the rose tree is just one of the important things on the historic site in Tombstone.

The Rose Tree Museum is now situated in an old inn that has housed many generations of the same family over the years.

S.C. Robertson and his bride Alice arrived in Tombstone in 1880. They
brought with them two wagon loads of furniture and household goods, most of which are displayed in the museum today. Ethel Robertson (later Mrs. Macia) was the eldest of the three Robertson children and she became one of the most outstanding historians of the area. They cared for the bush for many years.

The turn of the century brought new life to Tombstone and the building,
now an inn, had tin added to the exterior to protect the outside adobe walls from the strong Arizona sun. The inn name continued as the Arcade until 1935 when Mrs. Macia changed it to the Rose Tree Inn, honoring the large rose bush in the patio area.

When Robert Ripley, of 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not' called it "the world's
largest rose bush" it was one-quarter of the size it is today. The Rose Tree now covers more than 8,000 square feet of trellis and one can easily walk under the branches of the bush that is now covering the large patio area in the rear of the building.

If you want a view of the top of the bush just walk up a few steps to the
viewing platform and from there you can see it from the top. It is truly
amazing that a rose bush has grown into a tree this size and is still alive
over 110 years after it was planted. Today it is listed in the Guiness Book Of Records and it has never been disputed as "The World's Largest Rose Tree", somewhere along the line it outgrew the "bush" category.

The present owners (later generations of the same family) say the bush
does not require feeding (heaven forbid they might have to buy the property next door) or spraying but it does require extensive pruning and watering. Several truck loads of brush are pruned from it each January.When we visited in March of last y ear there were just a few blooms on the top of the tree but we can imagine how beautiful it is when it is in full bloom.

There is a small museum in the 1880s period home that contains some of those furnishing that came by wagon way back in 1880. You enter the museum and then move to the patio area to see the Rose Tree. They charge a very nominal admission fee and are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and are closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This is one stop anyone with horticultural interests will want to make
when they visit the Tombstone area.