Why I love David Austin Roses...and my top 3 for pollinators!

hi everyone and welcome back to planting for wildlife we're in March now so at least in the northern hemisphere we're officially in Spring I think today feels like the first time the weather actually feels a bit spring-like too in the northern hemisphere at least is the perfect time to be planting roses for the year ahead and in this video I'm going to be looking at David Austin raises or as David Austin refer to them as English Rises David Austin was a rose breeder who lived from 1926 to 2018 based in shopshire UK they mainly grow all of their roses in the UK in shopshire but they now also grow roses in Australia and in the US I know for a fact there's a lot of David Austin fans in the US David Austin Roses aren't categorized officially as a different type of Rose however the wider Horticultural World refer to them simply as English roses so what is an English Rose English roses are bread to combine the rosette or cup-shaped flower the beautiful scent and general characteristics of an old Rose but in a wide range of colors and crucially repeat flowering one of the things I love about David Austin Roses is how resilient they are to pests and diseases and the reason for this is that David Austin actually stopped spraying their Rose Fields when they did this a lot of the Rose varieties just died and ultimately David Austin just stopped selling those Roses in their view if the rose variety wasn't strong enough to survive on its own 2T without the use of chemicals then it wasn't a strong enough Rose to sell to their customers either I think this is a really bold move and just an amazing thing to do to help gardeners be as green as we possibly can be even now they review their variety of roses constantly and if any varieties are becoming more susceptible to Pest and diseases they actually just discontinue them I first got the bug for David Austin rosers visiting my first Chelsea flower show back in 2019 the David Austin display at these flower shows is absolutely magnificent they had pretty much every rose they breathed there and I was really just going around all of the Roses smelling each one and seeing which one I like the most out of all of those the one that really stuck with me is a beautiful pink rose called Princess Alexandra of Kent that I now have in my garden after visiting the show of course I wanted more roses in my garden but we didn't really have space at the time we had a smaller plot so a lot of them went into containers and a lot of those roses and containers are still with us now in this Garden having moved house twice if you're looking for inspiration around David Austin Roses there really is a huge amount on their website so I'd check that out some really nice photography on there I've also got a few books here um that I'll show you as well so first one I'm going to show you is David Austin the English roses now this is quite a chunky book and when you go through it it's got a huge amount of history about David Austin Roses about all of the different varieties of Rose not just David Austin all of the other ones as well it's a real rose history lesson um which is really nice um but quite quite a heavy read if you're just looking for a bit of a coffee table book um it does though have beautiful illustrations of all of the different roses and a brief description of them as well so it it's a really nice book If you're looking for more just a coffee table book kind of Photography and a book that's going to give you some inspiration around how to combine David Austin Roses perhaps with other plants in your garden then I'd probably get this book um so this is just full of beautiful photography um just show you a few here yeah so this is much more photography rather than illustrations um and as you go through it's got lots of beautiful photos and yeah I think that's a really nice example there actually of combining um pink David Austin Rose where with a Salvia which is perfect combination the Salvia is nice and Wildlife friendly too aside from the books David Austin also always publish an annual Handbook of roses this is the latest 2024 one it's only been out about a week or so and thanks to my mom for Lending me the book I've spent many an hour thumbing through these uh previously they always have beautiful photography lots of inspiration and it is a bit smaller if you just want to put it in your bag and on the train or something one thing just to note is that I'm not receiving anything from David Austin for doing this video I'm not sponsored by them in any way um I just love their roses and I wanted to share that with you in terms of planting for pollinators and for wildlife to be honest David Austin Roses as a hole probably aren't right at the top of the list and the reason for that is that some of the varieties have been bred with so many petals that the petals actually obscure the center of the flow and the stam meaning that the bees and any other pollinators can't can't get to them however David Austin can help you out here because on their website and in their annual handbook they actually assign a number of symbols to each of the roses and one of these symbols is a b which means it's a pollinator friendly plant so it really actually makes it quite easy to find your perfect pollinator friendly beautifully scented English Rose I've grown quite a few varieties of David Austin Roses over the last 5 years and also seen a lot in the gardens that I photograph I've pulled together my top three pollinator friendly razors and the first one on that list is conveniently on the front cover of the handbook this year it's called Lady of shalot as you can see it has a beautiful coppery color and I think this color really plays nicely into any contemporary planting scheme and goes beautifully with certain companion plants like salvia it has a really nice tea scent but I I think the thing that stands out the most about Lady of shalot is how much a strong grower it is it grows to 4T by 4 feet and really puts on a lot of strong New Growth every year this is one rose that I could happily put in a mixed border and it will hold its own whereas some of the davidustin roses that are less vigorous are probably best off in a pot or somewhere where they're not going to get overcrowded by competing plants the next one on my list is called tottering by gently it's a really nice name and I just love this Rose really for its Simplicity it's a little bit more like almost a wild rose in terms of how the flowers look being just a single flower in a canary yellow it grows really nicely and has a nice tea scent to it as well one benefit about tottering by gently is it also has nice red rose hips so you're getting some winter interest there as well the last one on my list is called comp the champagne and it's a beautiful soft apricot color it really has an Elegance to it this Ray a bit like it's name this rose has a musk smell unlike a lot of the other shrub roses and to me it's a really beautiful scent and makes this one stand out from the crowd it's not the strongest grower so I probably wouldn't put it in the middle of a mixed border like you can with Lady of shalot but it's such a beautiful plant it more than holds its own in a pot or just by itself if you've enjoyed this video please give it a like And subscribe and I'd really love to know what your favorite David Austin razors are in the comment section also feel free to follow me on Instagram it's MJ dearmore photography until next time enjoy the wildlife in your garden

Channel: Planting For Wildlife by MJD Photography

Views: 10,195

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Id: PW-4AnCcIVs

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024