|
|
|
May 20th, 2013
We are very pleased to be awarded our 17th Gold Medal for our Rose Garden exhibit in the Great Pavilion at the Chelsea Flower Show.
“We really wanted to do something different this year, so rather than basing our design on grand public gardens, as we have done in the past, we opted for a much more domestic approach, taking inspiration from private gardens instead. We knew it was a risk but it was one we believed was worth taking - and we’re all absolutely delighted it’s paid off. Customers will be easily able to recreate a corner of this garden at home, then just sit back, relax and enjoy the wonderful fragrance of the roses". David JC Austin
During press day, Joanna Lumley called in to admire our new carmine red English Rose ‘Thomas à Becket’. This rose is ideal for rose beds and mixed borders, or would be very effective in a large terracotta pot. Its Old Rose scent has delicious hints of lemon.
Click here to see our four new English Roses for 2013/14
|
|
April 2013
We are delighted that many more English Roses have now been given The Royal Horticultural Society's prestigious Award of Garden Merit (AGM), which indicates that the plant is recommended by the RHS. The new list includes 'A Shropshire Lad' (pictured left).
The RHS explain that the aim of the AGM award is to be of practical value to the home gardener. It gives the RHS seal of approval that the plant performs reliably in the garden and is of good constitution.
View all the English Roses which have been given the Award of Garden Merit
|
24th May 2011
We are very pleased to be celebrating our sixteenth Gold Medal from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. If you are planning to visit the show, please call in to see our display of fragrant roses in the corner of the Grand Pavillion - stand GPC1. If not, you might enjoy seeing Nicky Chapman on the David Austin Roses stand on BBC1 at lunchtime today.
Please visit our Chelsea page to see pictures of some of the well known visitors to our stand during the special preview day, including the fashion designers Stephen Jones, Zandra Rhodes and Jasper Conran.
Click here for pictures from Chelsea Flower Show
|
|
24th May 2010
We are celebrating the award of our 15th Gold Medal from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Our stand featured around 150 different varieties of roses including many fragrant English Roses. The display was creating using 800 rose plants, including shrubs, climbers and standard roses that were brought into flower for the show, nearly six weeks earlier than they would naturally flower in the garden.
David JC Austin writes: “2010 was a particularly challenging year due to our unusually long, cold winter, but memories of all the complications seem to melt away when you receive a gold medal. Chelsea is a remarkable showcase for British gardening tradition and is always great fun for us to attend. We love the chance to speak to so many passionate English Rose lovers - thank you to everyone who came to see us at the show."
|
|
7th December 2009
Prestigous bridal awards
We are very happy that David Austin Roses has been named on the shortlist for Perfect Wedding’s Best Wedding Florist of the year award and described as ‘romantic rose specialists’.
Kate Brown, the Publisher of Perfect Wedding wrote: “We've been studying all the wedding florists in the market looking for those that really stand out above and beyond the rest and I'm delighted to be able to tell you that you have made the prestigious Perfect Wedding Awards 2010 shortlist.”
The winners will be decided by public vote and announced in a special awards issue of the magazine, which the magazine says will celebrate ‘the very best of the bridal industry’.
Update: We were later announced as winners of the Best Wedding Florist Award - thank you to everyone who voted for us!
|
3rd September 2009
‘Gardener of the Year’ competition winners are announced
Garden News, the much-loved weekly newspaper for gardeners, has traditionally held an annual ‘Gardener of the Year’ competition, which started life back in the late 1980s. After a gap of five years, this legendary competition returned for 2009, better than ever before. There were twelve categories, covering almost every type of gardening project you can imagine, giving every gardener the chance to enter.
We were delighted to be invited to sponsor one of the categories and chose the ‘Best Community Project’. We wanted to give our prize of David Austin roses to a very worthy winner.
After much deliberation, Garden News have revealed the name of their winners. The ‘Best Community Project’ prize of roses has been awarded to 80 year old Dena Murphy from New Moston, Manchester - a very worthy winner indeed!
We firmly believe that gardening can help to keep you happy, healthy and active, but Dena has taken this a stage further. Her passion for gardening brightens the lives of the people in her neighbourhood and the food she grows is helping to transform her local community. Her community vegetable garden in New Moston supplies a luncheon club that feeds 50 local people every week. Dena works tirelessly on the garden, which is in its second year, come rain or shine.
The competition judge, Geoff Hodge, was Gardening Editor for Garden News for many years and is now a freelance garden author and broadcaster. In making the award, his comments were:
“Dena Murphy is a community dynamo. She started a veg garden at the Northfield Day Centre in Moston, Manchester, two years ago and grows enough food for the weekly luncheon club. She also shows the residents and local children how to grow their own and runs Grow, Cook & Taste classes.
“Well, if that wasn’t enough, she has also transformed the alleys at the back of her and her neighbour’s terrace houses. A once rundown area is now a horticultural haven, called Atherley Gardens, providing somewhere for all the local residents to meet, talk and have barbecues together. The project has worked so well that Dena now advises others in Manchester on how they can do the same.”
Everyone at David Austin Roses would like to send Dena their congratulations!
If you would like to enter next year’s Garden News ‘Gardener of the Year’ competition, look out for details in Garden News during Spring 2010.
|
20th July 09
RHS show report
We were delighted to be awarded a gold medal for our Garden Roses exhibit and a silver gilt medal for our Cut Roses exhibit at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in July 2009. The whole show, including the 'Festival Of Roses' had a historical theme as part of the year of events celebrating the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the throne. We incorporated a canon into our display of garden roses and continued the Tudor theme in our cut flowers exhibition which featured wedding flowers, bouquets and arrangements. We were very pleased to see so many keen gardeners during the show, including Princess Alexandra of Kent, who has a David Austin Rose named in her honour.
Earlier in the year we were awarded a silver gilt at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and a gold medal at BBC Gardener's World. We would like to thank everyone who came to see us at the shows and very much hope to see you again next year.
|
2nd July 09
We are delighted to reveal that David Austin’s ‘Graham Thomas’ received the highest accolade in the rose world when it became the latest of a select number of roses to enter the ‘Rose Hall of Fame’.
It was voted the World’s Favourite Rose by the World Federation of Rose Societies which represents over 100,000 rose lovers in 41 member countries, including Great Britain, the United States and Japan. The award was accepted by David JC Austin at the World Rose Convention in Vancouver in June 2009.
The award is made every three years. Each of the national rose societies is asked to submit their top three modern roses in the first round of votes. The top five roses are then re-circulated as a shortlist so that countries can vote for their favourite rose.
|
|
This rose was one of the first roses to embody all of David Austin's aims. The cup-shaped blooms have a strong, fresh tea rose fragrance with a cool violet character. Their colour is an unusually rich, pure yellow which is not found in the Old Roses and is rare, even among modern roses.
It repeat flowers well and performs very well in hot climates, yet is also one of the hardiest roses, able to endure cold winters. ‘Graham Thomas’ forms a bushy shrub of
4 x 4ft (1.2 x 1.2m).
It has a rather upright habit, so is well-suited to planting in tight groups of three in the garden, which can then be pruned to form a single shrub shape.
On the right, David CH Austin is shown with 'Graham Thomas', which is planted as a hedge against a post and rail fence.
|
|
It can also be trained as a spectacular climbing rose, reaching 8ft (2.4m) and is ideal for a wall, rose pillar or obelisk. It enjoys full sun but will also perform surprisingly well in partial shade, provided it is not planted directly underneath the canopy of trees.
Other awards ‘Graham Thomas’ has received include the Henry Edland Medal for fragrance and the Royal Horticultural Society's Award Of Garden Merit (AGM).
The rose was named for one of the leading horticulturalists of the 20th century. The late Graham Thomas, born in 1909, was an enthusiastic collector of Old Roses and a frequent visitor to our nursery in Albrighton.
Please click on the pictures for more information about this rose.
|
|
|
