English Roses by David Austin

The English roses, also known as Austin roses are the impressive result of David Austin's many years of breeding work. His vision of combining the wonderful fragrance, charm and flower abundance of the 'Old Roses' with the ability to flower several times a year, which the modern roses of the time had, led to some of the most popular and most beautiful garden roses, which today are commonly called 'English Roses' .

With this line, however, David Austin and his English roses were limited to white to pink varieties.

This was to change with Charles Austin, through which the important and still current apricot entered the colour palette via the climbing rose Aloha (Boerner, 1949) as a parent. This rose, named after his father, was in turn a parent of many prized varieties such as Graham Thomas (with the shrub rose Schneewittchen) or Leander, a seedling after which a whole group of English roses is named. Another source of further apricot-coloured English roses was to be Abraham Darby (Aloha x Yellow Cushion) with its large, fully double flowers and wonderful fragrance.

Pure yellow was achieved via Yellow Button, a cross between Wife of Bath and the yellow Chinatown, from which The Pilgrim (Graham Thomas x Yellow Button) arose.

The all-important red flower colour came into the English roses mostly via Chianti (Austin, 1965, Dusky Maiden x Tuscany). From this came The Knight in 1969 (Chianti x Gipsy Boy, or Zigeunerknabe). This made it possible for virtually all red Austin roses to arise, for example Wenlock and, via The Squire, subsequently also William Shakespeare, The Prince, Fisherman's Friend and many more.

Since then, a large number of new English rose varieties have been added up to the present day, whose parentage is not always disclosed.

In the early days it was still difficult to get hold of Austin roses in Germany, as only a few specialist rose nurseries offered them. Meanwhile they are a fixed part of most supply ranges, and more or fewer varieties of English roses can be bought in most nurseries and even garden centres and even DIY stores.

Since the early 1990s we have been offering a steadily growing range of English roses that you can also order online. In it we deliberately place value on the older varieties, too, which are in danger of soon disappearing from the trade. In return we forgo one or another novelty – at least until it has proven itself under the climatic conditions prevailing in Germany.

David Austin's Roses in the Garden

Because of this diversity in the origins of the English roses, they are also very broadly positioned when it comes to their uses in the garden. If you plan to buy a rose bred by David Austin for your garden, it is therefore worth reading the descriptions of the individual varieties and the customer reviews. Even though we list them together, they do not necessarily have similar characteristics, as for example all Rosa rugosa do.

In this group you will find many free-flowering, wonderfully fragrant larger shrub roses, smaller roses that stay compact for beds and also feel at home in a container, cluster-flowering roses and also robust varieties for hedges, some of which are now counted among the best and most beautiful garden roses.

English Climbing Roses

Above all, however, many of the English rose varieties are also willing climbers, some with such a strong urge to grow upwards that we sometimes even advise against keeping them as shrub roses.