Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
No photographs yet, but I am reliably informed that my order has been placed for the four new varieties being launched at RHS Chelsea Flower Show next week. What timing! Sadly, no Cheslea ticket for me, though I have set the video to record each hour-long daily BBC show, Monday through Saturday next week. Just…
Continue reading ➞ David Austin’s 2013/14 introductions
I expect by the next time I photograph this rose, David Austin's Kew Gardens, it will be a riot of single, creamy white flowers held in enormous hydrangea-like heads, eruptions of blooms that will continue in great, big flushes all through the summer. At the moment it is in furious bud, waiting on just a…
Continue reading ➞ Kew Gardens
Plenty of oranges here, but not the flower of a rose called Piccolo, so that I can demonstrate how perfectly, classily, the bloom co-ordinates with the new mahogany-red foliage. A gallery with hybrid teas, some Austin roses (English Roses), some others, in shades of eye-popping and spacehopper, through sunset, copper and red-gold, apricots and peach.…
Continue reading ➞ Orange Orange Orange Orange! …Orange!
I visited the David Austin nursery in Albrighton at the end of March last year for a garden design course. Obviously designing with roses was the theme, although the principles we covered are pretty much universal. I've studied design as part of my RHS training and this was a great opportunity to meet other rose-lovers,…
Continue reading ➞ Designing with Roses…
A joint visit today, back to Mottisfont Abbey and on to the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Hampshire. This Mottisfont photo gallery taken on a rather damp 21st June last year but looking superb. April cold and then lots of rain held back the flowering of the mostly once-blooming rose collection (the main show was…
Continue reading ➞ Mottisfont Abbey, Hampshire
A sport of Summer Song (above) is set to be unveiled at Chelsea this year. Carolyn Knight, who worked with David Austin in the early years, will be remembered with a rose identical to Summer Song in almost all respects save for a distinctive soft gold colouring. Sports are not unusual in the David Austin…
Continue reading ➞ Sport of Summer Song set for Chelsea 2013
Tranquility, The Lark Ascending, Boscobel and Heathcliff- four of the five new roses introduced by David Austin last year. Apart from Albrighton Rambler, whose appearance we might better be able to guess (and is likely to repeat flower..?), the other 2013/14 additions, Carolyn Knight, Thomas A Becket and The Lady Gardener will have to remain…
Continue reading ➞ David Austin roses – introductions 2012/13 and … 2013/14
One of my favourite English Roses, Munstead Wood (named after Gertrude Jekyll's home and garden in Surrey). A dramatic, rich deep and velvety crimson with good fragrance. Flowers - large in size and cupped at first, the colour deepens as the flower matures and we get a glimpse of the stamens amongst the petals. Practically…
Continue reading ➞ Rose Munstead Wood (English Rose, David Austin)
The Teddington Gardener 