1967 Australian Rose Annual
p178. (advertisement) Roy H. Rumsey Pty. Ltd., The Gardens and Nursery are open Monday to Saturday inclusive from 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., and you will find us in Old Northern Road, Middle Dural, four miles past the historic St. Jude's Church of England, on the right hand side of the road.
Australian Rose Annual articles written by Roy and Heather Rumsey
Rumsey, Roy H. (Glenorie, NSW) Modern Times rose 1960-86
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Glenorie, NSW) Some novelty roses 1960-99
Rumsey, Roy H. (Glenorie NSW) Advertisement 1960-158
Rumsey, Roy and Heather, (Glenorie NSW) New Roses 1961-19
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Glenorie NSW) New roses 1962-12
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Glenorie NSW) New roses 1963-23
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1964-11
Rumsey, R. H. (Glenorie, NSW) Six favourite roses 1964-89
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1965-13
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New Roses 1966-21
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural, NSW) Our twelve best sellers 1966-121
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1967-25
Rumsey, Heather (Dural NSW) The birds in her garden 1967-121
Rumsey, Roy, (NSW) pix 1968-36
Rumsey, Roy (NSW) The best roses of the last five years 1968-36
Rumsey, R. (NSW) Judging roses 1968-48
Rumsey, Heather (NSW) The best of the Floribundas 1968-58
Rumsey, Heather (NSW) pix 1968-97
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural, NSW) New roses 1968-123
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1969-26
Rumsey, Roy and Heather, (Dural, NSW) New roses 1970-26
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1971-23
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1972-60
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) Miniatures 1972-76
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1973-59
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1974-27
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1975-73
Rumsey, Roy and Heather Miniature roses 1976-32
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) Roses for the elderly & small spaces. symp 1976-63
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1976-96
Rumsey, Roy and Heather New roses 1977-85
Rumsey, Mrs. H. pix at 5th NRS AGM 1978-15
Rumsey, Roy and Heather New Roses 1978-139
Rumsey, Heather, pix at 6th NRS AGM 1979-15
Rumsey, Roy and Heather New roses 1979-28
Rumsey, H., Mrs. pix at 7th AGM of NRS 1980-15
Rumsey, H., Mrs. pix at 8th AGM of NRS 1981-15
Rumsey, Heather pix T. A. Stewart Memorial Award 1981 1982-30
Rumsey, H., Mrs. pix at 10th AGM of NRS 1983-15
Rumsey, H. Mrs. pix at 11th AGM of NRS 1984-15
Rumsey, H., Mrs. pix at 12th AGM of NRS 1985-15
Rumsey, Heather The Australian rose award, 1985 1986-32
Rumsey, Roy & Heather (Dural NSW) New roses 1980-111
Rumsey, Roy & Heather New roses 1981-59
Rumsey, Roy & Heather New Roses 1982-19
Rumsey, Roy & Heather (Dural, NSW) New roses 1983-19
Rumsey, Roy & Heather New roses 1984-23
Rumsey, Roy & Heather (Dural NSW) New Roses 1985-20
Rumsey, Roy & Heather (Dural, NSW) New roses 1986-19
Rumsey, Roy & Heather (Dural, NSW) New roses 1987-19
Rumsey, Roy & Heather New roses 1988-32
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural, NSW) New roses 1991-50
Rumsey, Roy and Heather (Dural, NSW) New roses 1992-34
Rumsey, Roy H. P/L Final closing down advertisement 1993-159
Rumsey, Heather & Roy (the late) Deane Ross Memorial Award - 1995 1996-102
Walsh, Richard Rumsey Rose garden 1997-25
Heritage Roses in Australia journal articles written by, or about Roy and Heather Rumsey
Rumsey, Heather & Roy open day 01-2-3
Rumsey, Roy & Heather. Open garden day report. 02-1-1
Rumsey, Roy & Heather - working on slide library collection of old roses. 02-1-2
Tea roses - by Heather Rumsey 03-2-5
Rumsey, Heather. Imports more teas from Sangerhausen 03-4-4
Rumsey, Heather - Hopes to get to Sangerhausen. 04-4-9
Classifications of old garden roses - by Heather Rumsey 05-1-3
NSW - Rumseys open garden day for Oct 30, 1983. 05-2-17
NSW - Rumseys to open on Oct 30, 1983 05-3-6
NSW - Open garden - Rumsey’s Nursery. Nov 4, 84. 06-3-12
Heather Rumsey 11-1-02
Rumsey, Roy & Heather close nursery 16-1-23
Heather Rumsey dies 17-2-07
Roy Rumsey dies 17-3-08
Rumsey Rose Garden 19-1-35
Batchen, Gillian NSW Sydney report Hughes, Rumsey, Rookwood, , Lizette Smith21-1-52
Batchen, Gillian ? - Sydney group The Rumsey Rose Garden 21-4-10
Rumsey, Roy & Heather NSW 1995 Deane Ross Memorial Award 22-1-22
Batchen, Gillian - Sydney report Lyon, Small Talks, Eliz Farm, Rumsey Gdn 22-1-54
MacPherson & Darley - Blue Mts report Rumsey gdn, Hartigan gdn 22-1-58
Batchen, Gillian, Sydney, NSW Rumsey Rose Gdn & rail construction site 22-2- 12
Laing, Ian - Sydney report Graeme Johnston talk at R. Show.Rumsey Gdn 22-2-54
Cox, Peter Rumsey Rose Gdn 22-4-14
Laing, Ian - Sydney report Rumsey. Wheen, Zammit Batchen gdns 23-1-59
Laing, Ian - Sydney report Ellis, Rumsey, Stackhouse, Lyn Pk, Molloy 23-1-60
1995. Heritage Roses in Australia. p7, Vol 17, No. 2
Stephanie Murphy. [Obituary for] Heather Rumsey 1913-1995. Anyone who visited Rumseys' Rose Nursery at Dural will remember Heather's gleaming white head presiding in the office.
Together with Roy, she helped to create an innovative and progressive retail rose nursery which pioneered the production and marketing of roses in containers. Starting in 1950 they developed a comprehensive range, including miniatures, shrubs and climbers, modern and old cultivars and some species roses.
It was Heather's interest first in miniature roses that led them to become agents for Ralph Moore of California, but it was her abiding fascination in Old roses, including old European cultivars but particularly Teas and Chinas, that found her collecting from cemeteries and old gardens and corresponding with like minded people in Australia and around the world. She was enthusiastic and supportive when Trevor Nottle and Deane Ross mooted the idea of a Heritage Rose Group in 1979. She worked hard on the vexed problem of naming old cultivars, importing budwood from different sources, hoping to verify an identification. She was triumphant when she discovered that the unique old tea rose known in this country as Countess Bertha was in fact Duchesse de Brabant. Her work was instrumental in re-establishing these beautiful plants in the gardens of Australia.
She was always there to help Heritage Roses in the most practical ways, allowing us to hold an open day at the Nursery or to pick buckets and buckets of roses over many years for display at Elizabeth Farm or Vaucluse House and other places, or providing a truck and plants.
Rumseys were the Australian agents for the German rose breeders Kordes and introduced many outstanding modern hybrid teas and floribundas, including the brilliant yellow Friesia in 1977. Heather actively supported the Australian Rose Society and had many friends in the members.
Heather had flair and in 1984 she had the bright idea of hiring a DC3 and taking members of the Rose Society and the Heritage Rose Group from Sydney to visit David Ruston's garden in Renmark. We had to push the plane to turn it around in Renmark, because it was too big to taxi round the airstrip. It was a wonderfully exhilarating trip.
Heather's determined and spirited character underlay a reserved and dignified manner. She died on the 8th of March, and her loss is keenly felt by her friends in the rose growing world.
[Refer also to the rose 'Heather Rumsey' and the 1982 reference therein for more on Mrs. Heather Rumsey].
1995. Heritage Roses in Australia. p7, Vol 17, No. 3.
Stephanie Murphy, [Obituary for] Roy Rumsey 1909-1995
Jack Harkness in his book 'Roses' mentions "the enthusiastic Roy Rumsey of Dural near Sydney". Enthusiastic is an apt word to describe Roy. He told me in one of our chats just before he died that Jack Harkness had stayed with Heather and Roy at Dural and when he picked him up at the airport he took Jack first to North Sydney to see the giant hinges that join the harbour bridge to the pylons. Jack was fascinated by things mechanical and so was Roy.
Roy was born in 1909 and grew up in Telopea where his father had a seed business. He went to Hurlstone Agricultural High School and in 1925 he was apprenticed to Hazelwoods Nursery at Epping. In 1929 Roy's father paid his fare to England where he had arranged for him to join the staff of Hillier's Nursery in Winchester for one year, and then he spent two years at Kew Gardens as a student. He returned to Australia in 1932 and joined the family business. He married Heather at Rydalmere Methodist Church in 1936. In 1946 he was appointed manager at Anderson & Co. A general nursery where Carlingford Court shopping centre now stands.
In 1950 he and Heather bought the property at Dural and started growing rose plants and some trees and shrubs and soon they opened the nursery that was to be their life until it was subdivided and sold 43 years later. Roy never accepted anything on face value, and this questioning approach led to innovative production methods and interest in, and use of, the latest research in disease control. The nursery was not a pretty place. It was laid out along functional lines. In the selling area the pots were laid out on black plastic in alphabetical order within their group - miniatures, bush roses (HT's and floribundas), old roses, rugosas and climbers. In the display garden, which was also the stock garden, the roses were arranged in rectangular blocks. Appearances may have been low on Roy's list of priorities but substance wasn't. He developed a method of growing roses in containers which had excellent fibrous root systems, and were vigorous and disease free. Right to the end of his nursery days he experimented with new methods of production, and in the last few seasons worked on a way to eliminate the back breaking labour of budding in the open, where the budder spends the day bent double crawling along the rows of stock plants. With the new way, the work could be done sitting comfortably at a bench. In 1994 in California I watched Ralph Moore demonstrate budding at an Old Rose conference at the Huntington Institute. He said the rose stock was developed and sent to him by his agent in Australia and he called it RUM10. Roy could be stubborn and impatient and together with Heather's determination the mixture was sometimes volatile but he was also sincere and very caring. He was very good to me giving me a job at the nursery in 1979 and teaching me not just how but why. After the last Heritage Rose meeting in Sydney on July 15th I called in to see Roy in hospital. I told him Gillian had listed 34 roses in bloom in her garden - not bad for the middle of winter. He said "Of course flower initiation depends more on light levels than it does on temperature." Although it had been a cold winter it has been very clear and sunny. Roy had cancer, a growth in the duodenum. It was diagnosed at the beginning of July when he was admitted to hospital. He celebrated his 86th birthday on the 18th of July with his son David and his much loved grand daughters Stella and Marie, his friends and the nurses and doctors at St. Davids Hospital, Eastwood. But the inspiration to us all was Roy alone. His courage and good humour did not desert him. He had achieved his aim of seeing Heather through her last illness. She died in March and Roy died on the morning of Wednesday 26th July 1995. I cannot express how much we miss him.
