I’ve spent a lot of time this month working in the garden. I’ve planted foxgloves, delphiniums, coneflowers, lemon balm, lemon verbana, sweet peas, dahlias, sunflowers, hollyhocks and several other “traditional cottage garden plants”. I’ve also purchased several new David Austin English Roses this year, and am very excited to see them start to bloom along with the others I’ve picked up over the past several years. The garden is finally feeling like it is coming to life. Hopefully, we’ll have lots of blooms over the next couple of months. Here are some photos of the roses in bloom, as well as some shots of the garden.

The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild

Princess Alexandra of Kent

Sceptre’d Isle

St. Cecelia

Munstead Wood

Sharifa Asma

Alan Titchmarsh

Gentle Hermione

The Alnwick Rose

The raised bed and potting area

Thanks for sharing your roses.

Denise

P.S. Love the structure in a pot on the left of photo#1. Guessing it's a clematis.

May I join you with my morning mug of coffee? :>)

All you photos are beautiful.

I remember how much perfume the English roses have, from, when I lived there.

Thanks for sharing those wonderful photos with us. I was planning to get Princess Alexandra of Kent this year but it was sold out. Guess I have to wait until next year.

Is PAoK's scent stronger than Munstead Wood?

Juliet

Juliet

Denise, that's actually a rose in the pot with the trellis, it's The Wedgewood Rose, which I'm hoping to wrap around the structure like a pillar. When I saw it at the Chelsea flower show a couple of years ago, the flowers were nodding on every branch, and it seemed pretty clear to me that it was a rose that wants to be trained as a climber and one where the flowers can fall over. I saw some at David Austin's garden in Albrighton about 10 days ago and I have to say that not a single bush looked very good, and even as a climber it didn't look like a very happy plant. I'm hoping for better luck. I like its ruffled edges so I hope that it likes the structure and gives me some good blooms. I just planted it about 2 or 3 months ago. I'd like to get Abe Darby at some point, I'm finding my tastes changing over the years and I'm more open to the apricot-mixed colours than I once was, although I saw some bushes of A Shropshire Lad growing at the gardens that might convince me to get it first, they were absolutely stunning (pictures soon!).

Inga, you can join me for a coffee (or tea!) in the garden any time you'd like! The best time is early morning or late afternoon when the sun lights things up in the garden; during midday we have a HUGE ash tree that cast shade over much of the garden, so indeed... it is a rather cool garden (not great for the roses, but how could I not at least *try* to grow them? The raised bed is far enough out of the way of the tree to get a decent amount of sun, but much of the garden gets scattered shade through most of the day.

Hey JumboJimmy! Nice to see you too sir, how are things Down Under? To be honest with you, both my PAoK and Munstead Wood are brand new this year, just a few months old, so I'm really not sure which I would say is stronger, I've only had a handful of blooms from either. They are both great roses though. At David Austin's gardens PAoK seems to be a bloom machine, Munstead Wood hadn't opened up yet, so I couldn't really say from there either. My (very elementary) opinion so far is that both are of "medium" strength for fragrance, but I'm very, very happy that I have both of them and I think they are two of the recent Austins that I would highly recommend. Don't overlook Young Lycidas, I think it might have an even stronger scent, and the colour of the rose is just incredible, pictures just don't do it justice. If you look at the first picture above, you'll see my baby PAoK and MW in the pots in middle, and YL just behind PAoK. The three are a great combination.

Juliet, thank you so much for your kind words. I think my photos are pretty close to the right colour for Munstead Wood, although it's really hard for my camera (and many others too) to capture that spectrum of colour. Have you seen The Prince? MW reminds me very much of that for colour... a deep red that, as it ages, starts to turn more and more purple. My plant gets a lot of shade, so the colour might not "fry" as much as it would in lots of daylight. I'm not recommending shade for any of these roses of course, I simply have no choice and am hoping that they do alright in these not so great conditions of having to be potted and getting scattered shade. I'd recommend MW very much. I grew The Prince and William Shakespeare in California, and I think this is a much better plant than either of them... if seems very much a "shrub". Comparatively, I also like Darcey Bussell very much, but it seems much more "upright" with the flowers floating on the top of the branches. MW seems much more rounded in growth, and I think the colour is richer. I'm glad you like my "garden guardian", he's one of the few things I brought with me to England from California. He's one of my favourite things and I always feel better knowing he is watching over things. The rest of the items you've mentioned were here when we moved in (a rented flat), so I'll need to leave them behind when we go, but I agree, they add a lot of charm to what was just a very "low maintenance" garden when we moved here three years ago. There wasn't an annual or perennial in sight, so I've been trying to add in some bulbs, self-seeders and perennials to liven up what was basically a "shrub garden".

I'll be posting a lot of photos from the trip to David Austin Gardens very soon, but it has been lovely to share these photos with you all. It's so nice to finally have some lovely roses again to take photos off.

So far, these are the roses that I am growing in the garden:

FIRST YEAR
Alan Titchmarsh
The Ingenious Mr Fairchild

SECOND YEAR
Gentle Hermione (I love this rose)
Sceptre'd Isle
Spirit of Freedom
Strawberry Hill
Sharifa Asma
Jude the Obscure
Jubilee Celebration
Harlow Carr

EARLY THIS SPRING
The Wedgewood Rose
Lady Emma Hamilton
Munstead Wood
Princess Alexandra of Kent
The Alnwick Rose

JUST ADDED
Princess Anne
St Cecelia
Wollerton Old Hall

Thanks for looking!
robert

As Juliet said all the little extras add so much to the pictures---

Please keep the pictures coming----

Florence

I added The Wedgewood Rose to the garden this year, really looking forward to seeing it in bloom.

The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild is such an interesting rose. I've had mine for two years now. I like the color shadings in the bloom.

Christina

Hi Krista, sounds like you like the peony/ruffled roses too. I like Mr Fairchild a lot. I like the colour and the scent is really nice, but it is certainly the shape of the flower that I like the most. I'm hopeful about The Wedgewood Rose, fingers crossed for us both with it this first year.

Renee, you're really going to love your Munstead Woods, I was out again today and my little baby is doing so well! And the colour!!!

Hi Christina, I really like your website! I used to grow a lot of the same roses as you have when I lived in Southern California, and grew them organically too! Nice to meet you.

Juliet, if you check back I just wanted to say that.. YES, it really is that colour. I went out today to check again and the colours are now an even deeper purple. We've had cloudy weather with breaks of sunshine... whatever it is... Munstead Wood looks unbelievable.

I took a few more pictures today.

Munstead Wood:

Scepter'd Isle:

Princess Alexandra of Kent

The Alnwick Rose

The Alnwick Rose was *just* opening, I was surprised to see the creamy centre, this is one of the first blooms so I'm not sure what to expect from this rose.

I'm thinking I might just *have* to go to the local nursery this weekend, I saw Claire Austin there last time, and should have bought her. Maybe she's still there waiting for me??

Thanks again everyone for the really nice comments, I love taking the photos and sharing my roses; and it's a real pleasure to have such delightful and kind people to share them with.

Ingrid

Btw, I just visited your website and I was so impressed by those wonderful scenaries of London! Love to go there one day. That photo of people kayaking on the lake during a misty day has bought back some memories of my high school years. I used to kayak with my old friends back then.

Juliet

Jumbojimmy, I'm not really smelling the old rose/ raspberry scent, it smells like... how can I put it... a florist shop to me... fresh and green. But the plant is new, so I'll give it some time. The photos on my website are mostly of Oxford. The photo in the mist is actually some rowers on the River Thames, which passes very near to my house. In fact, I live on a small island in the middle of it! If I walk along the towpath I see a variety of boats throughout the day, lots of narrow boats, some kayaks, and also the rowing teams practising. It's as beautiful as it sounds.

Hi Juliet. I'm falling very much in love with Munstead Wood, I hope the plant continues to produce as many blooms as it currently is (and it's in its first year to boot!). I love the colour, definitely a better plant than WS2000 or the Prince. I'm tempted still to also pick up Darcey Bussell, I really liked the bushes I saw at David Austin's garden. Compared to MW, Darcey seems much more upright, and not as deeply coloured, but still, really charming and one worth trying.

The new photos that you have added to this thread are to die for. I love, love, love Munstead Wood. That is really a must have David Austin rose for me in the future. Scepter'd Isle is also another favorite of mine. Thankfully I have that one already, but it is just a baby. Your photos tell me that I have something to look forward to when the rose matures.

Your photography is extraordinary. I really like the way how you capture the beauty of the roses with you lens.

Christina

You could be right! It's been ages since I last smelled this rose..perhaps the smell is like carnation flowers? I guess I'll have to wait for mine to bloom in spring to find out.

The photos on my website are mostly of Oxford
Sorry for the mix-up. That's one of the reason why I need to travel more. Oxford is definitely a lovely place to visit.

One of the reasons why I hesitated in buying Darcey Brussel is because I read from somewhere that it doesn't have a strong scent. Plus, the blooms don't last long compare to DA's cut-flower, 'Darcy'. However, I really do love the way the petals unfold and reveal its button eye at the center.

Christina, off the top of my head the ones that did well for me were Jude the Obscure, Sister Elizabeth, Comtes de Champagne, St Cecilia (although I think she likes England better), Charles Darwin. Heritage I loved for a season, but turned into my demon bush, along with Cottage Rose, as absolute rust buckets. All the "Romantica" roses I grew except Yves Piaget (one of my all time favourite roses... the scent is amazing), also got rust, especially Eden climber. Surprisingly, Mme Pierre Oger did amazingly well for me, I never had any trouble. Yolande d'Aragon also did well. I'm a huge fan of Munstead Wood this year, it just keeps going and going, and the flowers last forever and just keep getting deeper and deeper.

Jumbojimmy, yes... a carnation! That's exactly what I'm smelling. Good to know that about Darcey... I'll keep her on my wish list but might move her down a notch or two.

I ended up going out last weekend and getting the very last Claire Austin they had at the nursery! So I'm getting closer to collecting most of the most fragrant English Roses.

I went out this evening and took a few more pictures, including a nice one of Strawberry Hill (which has just recently been tranferred out of a pot and into the ground where it can be a short climber). I also have my first bloom of The Wedgewood Rose which I just picked up a few months ago.

Tonight's additions:

Strawberry Hill

The Wedgewood Rose

The Alnwick Rose

Munstead Wood

Sharifa Asma

Sceptre'd Isle

Thanks for posting more great rose pics! Seeing your photos forces me to try 'Munstead Wood' and I really like 'The Wedgewood Rose'.

Wishing you lots and lots of fun with your "old" and new roses in England.

Christina

Sherry

Carla

I wonder which Austin smells most refreshing to you? That is, after a long day of work - or really pick you up when you are dead tired? My favorite is Eglantyne, it's light and refreshing, like a brief moment in paradise.

I wonder if any of the ones you posted smell like Eglantyne? Many thanks.

Randy