A visit to David Austin's private garden

I've already written about my Garden Media Guild trip to the David Austin Roses in Shropshire, and I really was delighted by the gardens there and beguiled by certain roses.

 

But after a delicious lunch and gossip with other guild members (we talk a lot) it was time for another treat.....a look around David Austin's private garden surrounding his home.

 

There's always something so inviting about a gate ajar and a glimpse through to what lies beyond





 

From the back of the house your eye alights first on the water and then the statue in the distance draws you deep into the garden.

Like all good gardens, you can't see everything all at once,  you must seek and then you shall find...

While we were walking around , David Austin came into the garden to meet us...

and it was a pleasure to meet him. This after all is the man who has created over 200 English roses and developed  the National Collection of roses here. A man who developed his boyhood  passion to a business with three generations of his family working as world leaders when it comes to rose breeding. What a legacy...

As you would expect there were plenty of roses in his own private garden...and Constance Craig Smith, who organised our trip, was busy photographing just a few of them.

Making my way around the garden towards the front of the house,  I slipped through here

and found this charming piece, sculpted by David's late wife Pat

and then found two peacocks strutting their stuff

 before making my way back to the water lilies

and to wander around the roses one last time.

 

 

 A magical afternoon.....
 

The day I went to David Austin Roses

When my children were young, I didn't really appreciate roses. There were two trained up the arch to the lawn from the courtyard when we first moved into our cottage. A yellow and a pink one - don't ask me what they were, there were no accompanying labels.

I had to prune them back hard each year after all of my children got scratched by the roses. One eventually gave up the ghost (the pink rose, not my darlings) and the yellow one still looks as if it's on death row.

But in recent years, I've begun to adore roses for their virtues, not concentrate on their thorns. Their scent and the sheer beauty of those I've seen in gardens and at the big shows recently have made me determined to put in some more roses.

I've already written here about The David Austin Roses stand at Chelsea in May, and how beautiful it was.

http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/press-day-at-rhs-chelsea-in-grand.html

So last month, I joined other members of the Garden Media Guild on a special visit to their nursery, based near Wolverhampton.  I took a wrong turn and took an impromptu tour of the perimeter of the  nearby air force base before skidding in just before the tour. Fortunately there was still time to stuff a croissant down my throat and visit the loo before Michael Marriott , the Head Rosarian, showed us . around.

From small beginnings on this Shropshire farm, this family nursery now sell between two to  three million roses a year all around the world. It's an amazing story of one man's determination (David Austin) to develop a rose which would repeat flower, be disease resistant yet capture the glory of the
old fashion English roses.

Michael  has been with the company for many years, and he's obviously very proud of what is being achieved here, especially in the glasshouses. These are full of possibilities....around 120,000 seedlings and plants being grown on , all potential stars of the future. Or are they? It takes a very special plant to make the cut and to be put on the marker....eight only out of 120,000 actually make it. I was staggered too by the time it takes to create a new rose and get it on sale to the public.  Hazard a guess? I tried but was way out. It takes ten years.
.





Fifteeen people work in the breeding programme  So who decides which roses go to market? David Austin senior and his son David do.

Across the road from the nursery is a field, with rows and rows of the roses being trialled which have made it this far. Under grey skies, the colours shone out, and it was like being a child walking through a pick and mix selection of sweets. Which ones did I like best? Which had the prettiest colour, which had the most attractive scent?

They're all factors in deciding which specimens to trial further, but being resistant to disease and adverse weather conditions is also important. That's why in the distance I could see a large sprayer, spraying copious amounts of water over the lines of roses. Would they be able to cope in this field's sandy soil?

A few of us rather liked a pale yellow rose at one end of the field...we called Michael Marriott over to show him and one of us, I can't remember exactly who, suggested a name for it...."Lemon Sherbert"
Michael stuck his nose as close as humanly possible into the petals, murmuring "Mnnnn". He said it had its merits, but that could mean anything!

We then walked back to the nursery, which was very busy with visitors. No wonder, this is not just a nursery where you wander around pots of plants deciding which ones to buy. This is a feast for your senses ....gardens planted with hundreds of roses, all carefully labelled, growing in situ, so you can see their spread, how they look when they are mature.

This is the view as I sat on a bench with Michael whilst I interviewed him for the gardening programme I was presenting the following week. The scent was intoxicating as we chatted about the nursery, the breeding programme and much more.

Afterwards there was a chance to walk around the gardens on my own



feeling heady at the fragrance and beauty of the roses

and admiring the design of the gardens which showcase the different types of roses beautifully....

and very importantly, there were plenty of places to rest, to chat, and admire the vistas.

There are also distinctive sculptures to admire...they were created by David Austin's late wife Pat.....

 

Back to the roses, this was a favourite - The Ancient Mariner

 



and this ...Olivia Rose Austin

Mind you, I also liked the cool calmness of the white climbing rose Claire Austin. As Alison Levy who blogs as the Blackberry Garden said to me...you can always tell the really best plants when they're given the name of  one of the family. I agree, only the best for them.

By now, I was in the area where visitors were selecting their plants...I have a list of my favourites that are on my wish list...Olivia Rose Austin, Claire Austin, The Generous Gardener and Gertude Jekyll and James Austin.

But decisions decisions...there are so beautiful scented roses to choose from.

By now it was time to join the others for lunch, and as I scurried to the marquee, I could 'nt help laughing as I saw these satisfied customers taking their newly found treasure triumphantly back to their cars.

 

 

 

Their visit was over, but I had an even greater treat in store after lunch  - a private tour of founder David Austin's own garden.  You'll have to wait until my next blog to see how beautiful that is.....

But in the meantime, why not listen to my interview with Michael Marriott ? Click here.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p059qyq7



Press Day at RHS Chelsea in the Grand Pavilion





Even though it was hot outside at Chelsea, it was beautifully cool inside the Grand Pavilion. Less densely packed than previous years, there was an unusually airy feel and individual stands were easier to find.

Mind you, you couldn't miss the Hillier Nurseries stand which dominated the pavilion, and no wonder it won another gold from the judges, just as the Hillier stand has done so for the last 72 consecutive years.. What looked like a cool grey, giant, helical spring slinky toy, provided an usual bower to sit and ponder.

The surrounding planting of trees, shrubs, climbers and perennials was lush and plentiful and there were two paeonies which I wanted to dig up and take home. "Sarah Bernardt", with the palest of pink blowsy charm was really showing off and I also liked this "Krinkled White.



The Burncose Nursery stand is always worth a good look and this year proved no exception.



My favourite stand however was the David Austin Roses rose garden which also was awarded a gold medal. A delicious drift of the scent of hundreds of roses  on the air wafted my way, drawing me to the stand....



So cleverly designed and planted, seeing so many roses at the peak of their perfection was an absolute delight. I wanted to sit awhile, to inhale the heady scent and feast my eyes on the pretty pinks, the calming whites and creams and the pale yellow and apricot shades .

But no, there was far too much to do - I did manage to catch Alys Fowler, one of my favourite gardening columnists, for a quick interview under the rambling roses on the stand though.

I adored the Guernsey Clematis Nursery stand too. Beautiful waves of clematis cascaded at shoulder height as I walked through the stand. The pink streaked "Corinne" and the deep lavender "Parisienne" from the Boulevard collection caught my eye.

It was there that I met the delightful Rosemary Powell and her son Tony, who were admiring the clematis. Apparently Rosemary has been a customer of this nursery for many years, and cross bred some clematis creating new plants, naming them after her grandchildren.

Apparently this is Rosemary's 84th visit to the Chelsea Flower Show...the only years she didn't visit were during the Second World War when Chelsea was cancelled. Now I'm not one to ask a woman's age...after all, it should be classified information. But I did have to ask Rosemary how old she was, and the answer was 102.

Rosemary and I have agreed to meet up next year.

So, these were my highlights from the Grand Pavilion this year, but I didn't see it all in detail unfortunately. There was simply to much to do workwise - I couldn't even look at the trade stands let alone do any shopping. Literally, there was time for a 20 minute break to have something to eat and go to the loo. And that was it!

I'm not complaining though, because being at RHS Chelsea is a delight, an inspiration. For one week, this is the horticultural hub of the world, it's dynamic, it's packed with such creative and passionate people  and I couldn't miss this amazing annual experience.

Above all, it's fun! Where else could I have a chat with some walking and talking trees?

A day out at Gardeners' World Live

Summer is whizzing by so quickly...and I've already missed certain gardening events that I really would have liked to go to. I wasn't able to go to the Chelsea Flower Show this year, and I had withdrawal symptoms, especially after having such a wonderful time  there last year ( see what I got up to last year  here http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/day-at-chelsea-flower-show-part-2.html  and here http://thinkingofthedays.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/day-out-at-chelsea-chelsea-flower-show.html)

I've not even been to visit any Open gardens either, so I've been in dire need of some botanical inspiration , I had a definite desire to see other people's creativity brought to life, and I rather fancied doing a little shopping.

So, would this fit the bill?

Well yes it did.....there were a number of show gardens which were competing to be as innovative as they could be using a set list of materials. "Metamorphosis " was the theme, which was interpreted in interesting ways.

There were also some funky gardens

But as time was running short, I made a beeline for the RHS Floral Marquee where I could admire the rows of beautiful plants and flowers from around a hundred nurseries...

It was very muggy in the marquee...I began to flag, and decided I needed some fresh air....but then I saw the David Austin  roses display stand. It called me like a siren and I came closer, the most delicious fragrance wafted along in the still air. Gertrude Jekyll is my favourite rose....yet I still don't have one in my garden. This must be remedied!

Mind you I was so taken with this eglantine rose too...so prettily perfect too with such a delicate scent...I've decided that I must make the trip upto David Austin in Shropshire to see more.

There was lots to admire at Gardeners' World Live outside, but going indoors into the main halls didn't fill me with the same enthusiasm ...overall, there seemed a lack of vitality and pazazz, a cohesiveness and staff on a number of stands looked, quite frankly, bored.

What did interest me was the bonsai exhibition

Precision and perfection everywhere....

 

Not that you'll ever see me carefully shaping something like this. Firstly, putting a pair of scissors or secateurs in my hands is a high risk strategy...and secondly  I simply don't have the patience....although I did appreciate what I saw so much.

My first visit to Gardeners' World Live was all too brief....but will I go next year? Yes I will..... I met some lovely people, especially the persuasive lot on the RHS stand touting for new blood! As for the shopping, I've got a fair few ideas, but in the end I didn't buy anything on the day - unlike others on the bus back to the car park, who were poking other passengers with their purchases and plants. Thank goodness I didn't buy my Gertude Jekyll rose...that could have been interesting....

Today's track is my favourite piece of choral music "Oh Spotless Rose". Every time I hear it, I'm lost in the beauty of the composition and the incredible sounds that voices can make. This version is by the King's College Choir in Cambridge. It's for my friends Shannon Hurst lane, Denise Dube and Susan Lanier Graham from across the pond.....on a cold February afternoon  I took them to Evensong at Kings College, something they said they would never forget.

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