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David Austin
(Put your Mouse's pointer
over the photos to see the caption)
 I was first introduced to David Austin’s roses in Los
Angeles, California back in the early 1990s. I had
just learned about Old Garden Roses and went to my local
nursery to look for some. They had a few, which I
bought, but they also suggested I try some of these
“new” David Austin Roses. I went home that day with
Gertrude Jeckyll, Graham Thomas and
Mary Rose. I was
hooked. I turned that fascination into a business in the
1990s called Hundred Acre Woods Rosescapeing.
We took care of rose gardens on mainly the west side of
Los Angeles, but we quickly became known as people who
knew not only about old roses but also David Austin
Roses. By that time they were all the rage in
 Southern
California.
Mr. Austin showed American Rose Growers that roses can
and should be used in the general garden. Outside of his
roses, to me this is
perhaps his most important contribution to The Rose – at
least in this country. We were able to persuade many a
client to take their roses from behind the boxwood hedge
and into the general garden because of Mr. Austin's
Roses. From there we were able to
convince them
to try the Old Roses and Modern Shrub Roses.
Mr. Austin continues to breed lovely roses and I am
particularly proud that David Austin Roses® has allowed us to
become a licensed grower of their Roses.
We expect our full line of some 50 David Austin Roses®
to start being available in the Fall of 2006. In
keeping with Ashdown Rose's efforts to provide the best
quality plants available, we are importing all our
original plant material directly from the David Austin
Nursery in England. We will propagate our entire
line of David Austin Roses® from those plants.
Below,
courtesy of David Austin Roses®, is a brief Biography of
Mr. Austin and a history of his Nursery - which are
really one and the same.
HISTORY OF
DAVID AUSTIN ROSES®
All text below is copyright David Austin Roses®.
Not to be reused without permission.
All
Photos marked "Courtesy David Austin
Roses®" are the property of David Austin Roses® and may
not be reused or reproduced without permission.
David Austin was born in 1926, on the farm where he now
lives. He is the son of a farmer and was farming before
going into business as a nurseryman in the early 1960s
From an early age, he has been interested in gardening
and first turned to plant
 breeding through a friend of his father’s, Mr. James
Baker of Baker’s Nurseries. James Baker was introducing
new varieties of hardy plants, including Russell’s
lupins, phloxes, delphiniums and so on. In the 1940s, a
copy of George Bunyard’s book on Old Roses gave him the
idea of crossing Old Roses with Modern Roses. The Old
Roses - that is the Gallicas, Damasks, Albas, etc. - had
all but died out at that time. His objective being to
create new roses in the style of Old Roses, thus
combining the unique charm and fragrance of Old Roses
with the wide colour range and repeat-flowering
qualities of Modern Roses. He was also particularly
interested in producing well formed shrubs that would
make good garden plants.
The first variety he introduced was ‘Constance Spry’ in
1963, followed by Chianti in 1967 and Shropshire Lass in
1968, they only flowered once in early summer.
 From
these, he developed repeat flowering varieties with
similar flowers, the first
group being introduced in 1969 and included Wife of Bath
and Canterbury. He called these ‘English Roses’, as the
name seemed to symbolise roses. When
‘Graham Thomas’ and
‘Mary Rose’ were introduced at Chelsea in 1983, English
Roses quickly gained popularity both in this country and
the rest of the world. Since that time he has introduced
over one hundred and fifty varieties.
David Austin started David Austin Roses in 1969, largely
with the objective of introducing English Roses, as
other rose nurseries were not particularly interested in
them at the time. Later, his eldest son, David J.C.
Austin, joined him in the business. David Austin Roses
remains a family business, employing over 100 people and
growing over 1.2 million roses per year. Now 78, David
Austin is still very active at the nursery dividing his
time between the
 breeding programme and writing.
David Austin was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by
the Royal Horticultural Society in 2003 for his services
to horticulture and the Dean Hole Medal by the Royal
National Rose Society. He has received an Honorary MSc
from the University of East London for his work on rose
breeding. He received the lifetime achievement award
from the Garden Centre Association in 2004
The Nursery
Today
The nursery runs one of the largest rose breeding
programmes in the world
 carrying out over 150,000 crosses each year, producing
about 400,000 seeds. From these about 250,000 seedlings
will germinate from which each year’s new introductions
are selected after 9 years of trialing. The new
introductions are divided between the roses bred for
garden use and those for cut flower use. The 5 or 6 new
garden varieties are introduced each year at the Chelsea
Flower Show in May. The breeding of fragrant, cut roses
in the style of the English Roses is a relatively new
venture for us, after more than 10 years of breeding and
trialing we introduced our first four%201579.%20HR00.gif)
varieties in the spring of 2004.
The retail catalogue contains over 900 different
varieties, covering the whole range of roses and with
particularly good selections of English Roses, Old
Roses, Shrub Roses, Species Roses and Climbing Roses. It
is translated into French, German and Italian and we
export to many other countries around the world. We have
a special American edition for sales to North America
using US grown stock. In addition we have a network of
approximately 300 licensees in all
the main rose growing countries in the world that grow
the English Roses.
The wholesale division supplies roses to the trade
including garden centres, garden designers and other
nurseries. Roses are supplied both
 bare root and
containerized.
At our nursery in Shropshire we have one of the best
rose gardens in the world containing over 700 varieties
and covering nearly 2 acres. We also have an excellent
plant centre, tea room and garden shop. For more
information on these two please on Gardens and Plant
Centre on the home page.
Click Here to see our page on the David Austin Nursery &
Display Garden in Wolverhampton, England.
Click here to link directly to the
David Austin® Roses Website to information on visiting the David Austin Nursery
and Gardens.
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