Rosa banksiae 'Albo-plena'

The double white Lady Banks rose is a true heirloom of Southern gardens, the kind of rose a grandmother trusted and passed along over the fence. Unlike most roses, this one asks for little and gives a great deal. Nearly thornless, the long green canes climb with ease, spilling over fences, arbors, and old farm gates as they have for generations.

In spring the plant becomes a cloud of small, double, pure white rosettes, each crowded with petals and carrying the soft, sweet, violet-like scent for which the white Lady Banks is famous, the most fragrant of the clan. The flowers are far smaller than a modern rose but come in astonishing profusion, hundreds to a cane, an old-world charm no hybrid can match. Brought west from a Canton garden in 1807 and long grown in China before that, the double white took root in the American South generations ago and has thrived ever since.

Vigorous and adaptable, the rose thrives in full sun to part shade and needs little of the fuss the hybrid teas demand. Blooming once a year on old side-shoots, the plant wants no hard pruning, resists most pests, and shrugs off heat and drought once established. Give full sun to ripen the wood, hold the pruning until after the flowers fade, and take out only the oldest canes. Nearly evergreen where winters stay mild, the plant is hardy through zones 8 and 9 and often reliable in sheltered spots in zone 7.

This is the kind of rose behind the famous Tombstone rose: a single white Lady Banks set out in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1885 now shades some eight thousand square feet on a trunk too broad to reach around, a living measure of what the plant can do given room and years. Give the double white the same, a pergola, a large arbor, a sturdy fence, or an old tree to ramble through, site the plant where the spring bloom and the fragrance can be met up close, and the rose will repay the space year after year with graceful flowers and a timeless presence.