David Austin Gardens, 2011

Last week we went to the “Mecca” of English rose lovers… David Austin’s gardens in Albrighton, England. We took a two hour trainride and were dropped off at Albrighton station, then it was just a 20 minute walk to the nursery. Unfortunately, it started to rain just as we arrived, so we had a picnic lunch under the shelter at the station, and when it started to clear we walked to the nursery.

Most of the roses were in bloom, but a lot were still waiting to open up. The gardens were incredibly beautiful.

I think the one advantage of the poor weather was that the gardens weren’t very crowded. In fact, we were lucky come on a day when they were offering a free “behind the scenes” tour, and only 4 other people signed up! So we got a wonderful, nearly private tour of the gardens… and… we got to go into the private area and visit the greenhouses where all the thousands of potential new English roses were growing!! Our tourguide, shown below, has worked for David Austin for over 20 years, and is obviously still very passionate about the roses, she was so incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic, a real sweetheart.

Below are some of my favourite photos from the day:

Mary Magdalene

Princess Anne

A Shropshire Lad

Young Lycidas

Gentle Hermione

The Herbalist

Darcey Bussell

The Lady of Shallott

Princess Alexandra of Kent

Skylark

The Generous Gardener

I’ve also included some photos of the new roses for 2011 (they were all tiny plants, just planted and still showing at Chelsea!), and some other that I think Austin fans might be interested in seeing. At the bottom of the page you’ll find thumbnails for the entire gallery of images. I’ve tried to photograph the nameplate for each rose that I photographed, and to take shots of the full bush as well as individual flowers.

William and Catherine

Queen Anne

The Fighting Temeraire

Susan Williams-Ellis

Kew Gardens

England’s Rose

Wisley 2008

I ended up buying three roses that day, (you should have seen the looks as we sat on the train buried in our little rose forest). I fell in love with Princess Anne and had to get her. It is just an amazing little rose. Every single bush I saw was just covered with amazing blooms and I loved the colour and shading. I also picked up one of the new ones (I couldn’t believe they were selling the 2011 roses just announced that same week at Chelsea), Wollerton Old Hall, which is supposedly one of the most fragrant roses that Austin has ever produced, so I’m very much looking forward to the first bloom! Lastly I picked up St Cecelia, a rose that I used to grow in California and have missed terribly. I adore the scent, a mix of myrrh and almonds, which always reminds me of candy. It is very strongly scented, and I love the bloom shape as well. If I could have grabbed one more, it would have been The Herbalist, which really stunned me with its sheer joy and exuberance. Of course, there are dozens on my wish list, I wish I could just have a trial garden for David Austin… sigh… dream… dream… dream…

Here is the entire gallery. Click on any thumbnail to see a larger version, (or, most visitors should see a “View in PicLens” option which allows you to launch a slideshow viewer if you would prefer to browse the gallery that way).

[View with PicLens]

Jana says:

10 Jun ’11 at 4:49 am

Hi Robert, thanks so much for sharing (I found it originally on GW), this post will be probably the highlight of this season! As can be seen on pictures mainly the close planting of e. g. five plants do the trick. Austin himself recommend to plant at least three plants of one variety together to support themselves and I think sometimes they should be also sold like this, in such groups. To St. Cecilia – it really smelled exactly like candy to me, but I had only one plant which had not very lush foliage and was a bit blackspot prone in my conditions, but perhaps five plants in one would make one sightly specimen.

robert says:

10 Jun ’11 at 2:43 pm

Hi Jana,

I don’t know what I would have done without the GardenWeb forum to help me learn about English and Old Garden Roses, (although for right now, I’m only growing English roses). For anyone visiting that doesn’t already visit GardenWeb, the OGW and Austin forum can be found at this site. Thanks for the nice words about this page, I hope that the members there find all of these photos helpful. I hope to go back at least one more time this summer to get more pictures of the roses.

I’m worried now about St Cecilia! I grew her in California in an area where blackspot wasn’t a problem (San Clemente usually only had issues with rust and mildew), so maybe now I’ll see why this rose isn’t more popular. Hopefully, she’ll do okay in my English garden. I just love the scent so much. I picked a flower last night and kept it next to my computer while I was working, sniffing every now and then and enjoying that wonderful scent.

All of Austin’s roses are planted in groupings of 3, 5 or 7, as far as I could tell, and indeed, it makes a big difference. They eventually look like huge single plants, but as you say, it’s multiples that give that effect. Right now, I’m still in the “testing” phase, dreaming of a garden in the future that I really will call my own and planting it with longterm plans in mind; but for now, I’m sampling roses to decide which ones will make it on my list for the eventual “dream garden”. There are several roses that I grew in California that I would like to grow again, but I am more focused on trying new ones that I’ve not grown before. That said, I couldn’t resist regrowing Jude the Obscure and St Cecilia, I love there scent so much that I just had to have them again. Jude isn’t nearly as “abundant” as he was in the warmer climate, but I still love every bloom he gives. So far, St Cecilia is wonderful, but it is brand new this year and so I might have different feelings about her by the end of the season.

Thank you so much for coming back and commenting on the page, it’s lovely to see you.

13 Jun ’11 at 11:21 am

Hello Robert, if you plan to visit Austin gardens again and report about, then I am looking forward to read it, since now I don’t have any chance to visit them personally. Please, let me know. It is probably difficult to say whose of his roses would thrive in my conditions as they are surely sprayed and grown in a milder climate than mine (e.g. Mary Magdalene was very weak and blackspot prone here, too), but still I like to look at your nice pictures a lot.

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