Thank you so much for posting the whole series of pictures. I enjoyed them and wish I could see the show also.

Please comment on your Port Sunlight rose. How big are the flowers? Mine is just beginning to flower, but the buds are quite small, hardly bigger than a large miniature rose. I may just have to give this rose time like the others.

After viewing both wonderful sets of photos I feel as though I've been there without having had to pay for airfare, hotel accommodations or entry fees. Awesome!

Thank you!

Ingrid

Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures! And I loved the commentary--the pipe organ reference was my favorite!

I visited London 20 years ago (yikes-that long!!??) and went to the Chelsea flower show. Its funny, I didn't grow roses back then, but I came home with a David Austin catalog, not knowing what I had until years later. I still have it too.

Hi Andrea! Wow. My mouth is watering. Thanks for sharing the experience with us. Your photos are fantastic. Gotta go look for your other thread.

My mouth is watering too! Thanks for sharing with us your wonderful photos of your trip to the Chelsea flower show.

It seems like an exciting event, and looks heaps better than Melbourne International flower show in Australia.

You know, that photo of Port Sunlight remind me of Tea Clipper. Is there a major difference between the two roses?

I think I'm just speechless.

Wonderful, thank you, but

"Young Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime!"

Please give us a detailed rundown of your experience with the newer Austins (including diseases, etc.) when you think you've had them long enough.

Great, great photographs and the Austin rose jumble is my favorite.

Seeing your pictures is almost as good as visiting in person AND there are no crowds! The one time I went to the show, the crowds were a bit overwhelming. Of course, I did have my mother in a wheelchair and it was very difficult to navigate the rocky paths. If you would, please tell me more about Munstead Wood, i.e. its growth habit, blooming habit, disease resistance, etc. I really love the dark red beauties.

Thanks, Patricia. Yes, the rose jumble is pretty!

Jbfoodie, thanks so much, and I agree with you about the crowds at the show - it really can be overwhelming even without having to navigate a wheelchair. Either I was in someone's way, or someone was in my way, or often all of the above. I think this is one reason why kids under 5 can't go, and i think that some of the exhibited plants are actually poisonous, or thorny! But pretty.

Andrea

Wow! (Again) And thank you so much for posting all these, and your comments on the Austins. Amazing sights!

Thanks again, Hoov. Let's hope the new Austin varieties will soon also be available in the US! In the meantime, I'll keep you guys posted. An excellent nursery nearby often sells some of the newly announced DA roses after the Chelsea Show. I guess I should swing by and check!

Andrea

Jbfoodie, I see I forgot to answer your question about Munstead Wood. When I got it last year it was a real runt of a plant. I actually called DA to have it replaced but their customer service in the UK is not as good as it is in America. So there it sat. Grumpily. A foot tall, thin, upright with its prickly canes, usually defoliated by BS. Unsure if it were to live. A few small flowers on and off. Yes, it did repeat, but I barely paid attention to it. Well, this year this rose completely changed. With more TLC on my part, i.e. a good amount of food, it decided to actually grow and crank out a bunch of huge, and I mean huge (15+cm) many-petalled flowers of the blackest velvety red (looking much much more impressive than on the DA website). They are of absolutely stunning color and substance. Just touching a single petal is a delight - thick, veined, of a black red on the outside turning to crimson and cerise pink toward the middle, it looks like it came from an artist's canvas. I've never seen such a dark red in a rose, not even in a hybrid tea. At their first opening, there wasn't much scent, but then it developed into a very deep classic damask, wow. The blooms last a week or so. No BS right now in my no-spray garden, but other than the last week, this spring has been quite sunny, dry and windy here, so not much BS in general. However, it's still not a tall plant, 2-3 ft perhaps, and the canes are weighed down when the big flowers open fully. I can tell you more about it (repeat etc) later in the season.

Hope this helps,
Andrea

How fortunate we are to see your wonderful photos. All just lovely!

Carla

Breathtaking, just breathtaking. Andrea, you are the best as always. So which rose you would choose from the newest ones? Thanks, Jana

Many thanks, Carla, and it's nice to hear from you.

Thank you for the compliment, Jana, although there are many gifted photographers here on the forum.

As to the roses, hm, I wasn't overly enthusiastic about this new set from DA. I guess it all depends on personal taste of course, and also on individual gardening needs. I thought that The Wedgwood Rose, which they featured most prominently, was by far the prettiest, but it was also a major flopper, as you can see on the photos. Even DA admits to this 'nodding habit', which, of course, could be an asset in a climber. But this one is really extreme in this habit. I didn't think too highly of any of the others.

Lady of Shallott has a striking orange color, bearing similarity to Pat Austin, but doesn't have its refinement of color and shape, looking much more like a modern orange floribunda. It seemed mostly upright without much nodding, unlike Pat Austin. I found its scent awful. It was not a pleasant warm tea variant as the catalogue states but an especially stinky variant of myrrh mixed with very phenolic tea.

The brightly cerise coloured Tam o'Shanter was a very flimsy thing with small clustered and nodding flowers of undescript loose petal formation on top of very wiry growth (see pics), and no scent to speak of. Good color though. But you can get this from many other roses. I thought it may look good though if mixed with some other tall garden plants, cottage style.

The new single petaled rambler Kew Gardens was not especially attractive or charming, but rather very boring, and I find many of the already existing ones of similar style to be prettier.

Overall I think that DA's previous recent releases have been much more exciting. I can recommend the following:

Munstead Wood - black-red color, thick petal substance, damask scent is just WOW. Blooms last quite well too.

Young Lycidas - huge blooms of a most intense deep cerise pink-purple and very strong damask scent on a short plant, flowers last very long, healthy.

Port Sunlight - The name indicates the radiant color of this one, it really glows in the garden, and has so far proven to be very floriferous with its flowers retaining good shape and their copper-apricot-peach color while lasting very well (unlike Tea Clipper).

Princess Alexandra of Kent has very beautiful huge and well scented blooms, but I seem to have problems with somewhat weakly growing shrubs. It may be just my particular environment though. I actually briefly met the person this rose is named after at a college dinner here in Cambridge. She seemed very nice.

Darcy Bussell - superb lively cherry-crimson color and good form, always in bloom, upright stems and flowers (hey, even DA can do it!), very healthy, but not much scent. Color stands out in the garden. A top notch garden plant so far.

Lady of Megginch - huge deep cerise blooms that last well, what a looker! Not much scent, and sometimes a bit nodding (no wonder given the size and petal count of these blooms). Love it.

And of course, Lady Emma Hamilton and Summer Song. Both are exquisite in color (Summer Song's burnt orange is totally unusual) and strongest fruity scent. LEH is also a great bloomer, Summer Song is slower in repeat.

I also saw Gentle Hermione at the Show, and thought that it looked surprisingly beautiful - a soft glowing pink on an upright shrub with neat petal formation. I suspected thought that the blooms may not last that long, some of them looked a bit tired and loose, something I didn't see on any of the other roses there.

Queeen of Sweden looked very good too at the show (see pics), not much scent though.

Wisley 2008 looked very fragile but beautifiul (see pic). Mine hasn't even bloomed yet ...

For the lovers of rugosas, the Wild Edrics I saw at the show had a striking color and ok scent, but somehow I thought that they lacked refinement and charme. But quite a few roses look different at the show than they normally do. Many of them were also not as much scented as they usually are. So it's not always easy to judge.

Anyway, I thought that the most attractive new release by DA was The Wedgwood Rose, perhaps followed by Lady of Shallott.

Andrea

WOW!!!

I have to say that I've been going back & forth wondering what brand of camera to buy.. I'm a Nikon person but was swaying to Canon.. going back & forth..

Now I'm back to Nikon and may run out today to buy it.. the D5000 with live view.

Thank you so much for posting this!

I have looked at this thread over and over and over and over again. I should have mentioned when I first saw it how much I appreciate you posting it. A gynormous THANK YOU to you for giving us this treat and going over all the new roses with us. I can only pray that DA-USA will feature Princess Alexandra, Summer song and Young Lycidas for us next season.

You can't go wrong with either brand. Well, I've always been shooting Nikon for SLR and Canon for compact. The pictures here are taken with the Nikon D200, predecessor of the current D300. It really is a great machine with superb ergonomics which does make a difference on a shoot. For quality of body, ergonomics, accessibility menus, features, and lately also sensors, Nikon is hard to beat. Lenses are important too, so remeber that you're buying into a whole system there. For this series, I've used only two lenses, the 17-55mm f2.8, and the 105 mm macro VR. Both are superb for their purposes. However, the entry level cameras of both Canon and Nikon, including the Nikon D5000, can be limited in terms of what lenses they can take. In Nikon's D40/5000 bodies there's no in-camera autofocus-motor which limits the use to newer AF lenses with external motors, and in Canon's case the entry-level cameras allow only for a limited range of dedicated lenses, usually not top glass. Other than that, the D5000 looks very tempting. Check also out the D90 and D300. For full-frame sensors look at the D700, but that's a lotta ãã/Dollars/Euros. But again, Canon also makes great cameras.

Before you buy, check out www.dpreview.com for, well, camera reviews.

Good luck!

Andrea

Here is a link that might be useful: dpreview - Nikon D5000

Thank you, le jardin des roses. Sorry I didn't reply to you in my above post to roselovr, yours wasn't up then, so our posts must have crossed. It certainly makes me happy to hear that you and others have been enjoying this series so much. And I'm sure you'll be able to get Princess Alexandra et al this coming season. The Austins of the last few years really are terrific roses. I just got my DA catalogue for the UK (always a treat!), so hopefully the US version will also come out soon!

Cheers,
Andrea

Thanks for the 'show'! If only we had scratch & sniff!

Another great website that reviews cameras is Luminous Landscape.

We're Canon folk at our house but the (not that old) DSLRs are getting long in the tooth. I did pick up and enjoy *immensely* a G-9 on eBay last fall just before the G-10s came out and now I can sell it for more than the old list price, so I guess other folks like them, too. Very, very capable camera in a point & shoot format - great for vacations (when most folks don't want to wait for you) or hiking. And white balance in the various 'scene' modes is almost like using a custom card, they've really improved on this problem and auto focus speed across the board in the newer cameras of any brand, I think.

If you want, you can also get accessories for it like a stick-on grip which makes handling more sure, a converter to add filters like polarizing which is all we've done (DH had to get one, too) - polarizers are must have in my book and the sleeve also keeps dust from getting into the lens mechanism, a source of failure for these types of cameras. The additions make it more bulky, but you can always take them off if you need a slimmer unit. You can also get wide & telephoto adapters, but I think at that point, you might as well haul out the DSLR!

Here is a link that might be useful: Luminous Landscape

Thank you much for your review, Andrea, very useful. To say the truth, I also dont like those too nodding varieties (although I appreciate "slightly arching growth", it often isn´t only slightly arching). Nevertheless Austin´s creations are still the most charming modern varieties, as compared with others, according to me. I also tried to grow Tantau´s roses from the Nostalgic series and really worth growing is cv. Hope and Glory (Piano) according to me. But these roses I don´t grow anymore: Aphrodite, Ascot, Biedermeier, Elfe. The reason was mostly a lack of fragrance or some charm. I also saw baby Chippendale in a pot, its colour was similar to Abraham Darby, blooms were small (mine hasn´t bloomed yet), and Heidi Klum - for those who like romantic purple roses it looked like a superb variety - blooms were scented and large and surely good for cut. I still grow Gräfin von Hardenberg, blackish velvet variety, and I´m not decided yet if to grow or not - if it lacks better repeating qualities I will replace it.

I´m thinking about Princess Alexandra of Kent and Young Lycidas as well, but still not decided since I don´t like too vivid pinks very much.

Maybe it was written in some other discussion, but what about Claire Austin?

Jana

Andrea, after I posted, that's exactly what I did, went to the review sites and read (well skimmed) about the 3 cameras I was looking at. It was the one Nikon and 2 Canon (Rebel XSi & Rebel T1i).

One review pretty much said that bang for buck, the D5000 was the way to go since it was a scaled down version of the D90 and that most people won't miss the extra stuff in the D90. The D90 is too heavy for me with my back problems.

I played with all 3 cameras at Best Buy one day; since I know Nikon, I figured that I was better off just sticking to what I know since all 3 cameras got the same type of rating. I didn't dig too deep because if I did, I won't be buying a camera for a few weeks & I wanted to upgrade before that.

Jana, thanks for the info on Tantau's Nostalgic series. I'll take a look at Piano. I actually also got a Chippendale this spring, and mine has not bloomed yet either, so I guess we can compare notes later this year. I also remember looking at Heidi Klum, so any more info and pics on yours will certainly be appreciated.

Princess Alexandra of Kent is not that vivid, but of a deeper pink with a very distinct smoky salmon tint, quite nice actually. Lots of petals in nice formation, it looks superb when it slowly unfolds. It lasts quite well on the bush and in the vase too. I really like its scent, old rose with tea, I'd say.

Young Lycidas is of a very vivid color, but I'd put him more into the purple-cerise group. Toward the end his huge blooms fade into a nice soft mauve. And the fragrance is really superb.

Claire Austin, now that's a very very vigorous, extremely healthy rose (basically no BS in my no-spray garden), and a very good bloomer too so far. Looks like it wants to be a climber. Its flowers open light lemon fading to white or cream white, with a complex myrrhy scent, not too bad. It blooms in clusters and the blooms are very cup shaped. It's pretty, but I think it just looks a little pale somehow, perhaps because it doesn't quite have the radiant quality of say, Margaret Merrill or even Fair Bianca, and the blooms tend to not quite fully open, staying cupped pretty much until the petals drop. Currently, mine is a tall arching shrub (in its second year with me), but I think it'll look better with some support as a climber, perhaps next to a dark red rose like WS2K. Anyway, so far it has proven to be an excellent garden rose, so I can certainly recommend it.

Roselovr, sounds all very good, especially if you're already familiar and comfortable with Nikon and perhaps own some Nikon glass already - did you get the D5000? We'd certainly love to see some pictures!

Andrea

I will offer a couple observations on my Port Sunlight and Claire Austin which are now blooming. I don't have England's moderate climate here. At the moment we are under a heat advisory for the next few days with temperatures in the mid to upper 90s and high humidity. I say that to describe the conditions these plants have at the moment. Port Sunlight is a pretty apricot with a nice smell, but it fades rather badly like Tea Clipper. Flowers are small, but that is the heat. I think it will get better with time, but the weather will have to cool off for it to look better. At least it is an attractive color. Claire Austin is blooming in nice clusters with small, white flowers that have some yellow in the middle that ultimately fade to white. In that respect it starts out like the floribunda Moondance and the other Austin rose Swan. I think it will be a nice rose also given some time. It might be good on a pillar if it gets tall. I hope this helps a bit.

I´m sorry I don´t have any photo of Heidi Klum (I don´t grow her personally), I´d surely post it. My very last addition is Walzertraum- when I saw it in our garden centre this weekend I give up all Austins offered there and picked this (I had to choose only one since my husband was with me :) ). The only thing I can say about it till now is that it looks to my eyes much better in reality than any photos I´ve seen - either the official ones or from HMF.

Thanks for your feedback on Port Sunlight and Tea Clipper, Bustopher. Weather and climate obviously make a difference. The temps here have not come above the 70s so far. So while Port Sunlight holds its color fairly well and never looks bleached, Tea Clipper actually managed to fade to a slightly greyish white, yes white. That's an accomplishment in an English summer. When I smelled TC again lately, it was mostly myrrh, not very nice. I think the tea scent is there when it first opens which is also when it looks best. Despite the intense fading and increasing blowsiness, the blooms stay on the bush for quite a while, for better or worse, ha! So I think that Port Sunlight is certainly more beautiful in color and shape. Although I have to confess that TC photographs surprisingly well and does have a certain charme even at the later stages. I'll post comparisons between the two on a new thread soon, and please feel free to post some pics there too, the more comparisons the better.

Thanks, Jana. It would be really nice if you could post a picture of it at some point, perhaps on a new thread so presumably more people will take a look at it. The rose certainly looks quite nice on HMF. Is it scented?

Andrea

So, there are my only pictures of Walzertraum for you, Andrea, but not so good as the reality. I could post it in its own report as soon as I will have some next better shots, but I´m not sure it´s worth for american roselovers since I think it isn´t so widely available there? This bloom was big, good for cut and only gently, but pleasantly scented. But yes, there WAS some constant fragrance!

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Wow! What a lovely collection of flowers of great color.Mind blowing.I wish i could be there.

Thanks so much, Jana, Walzertraum looks like a very nice rose with a fresh pink color. Definitely post some more pics of it on a new thread - this is actually an international forum!

Thanks, Beth!

Andrea

Sigh! The prettiest pink Wedgwood, you know that is on my mind!
Thank you Straw for the show, we are thinking about one thing only, if we were there, we would get one or more.....

What a joy to read this thread on my blackberry during my eternal morning commute into NYC! Thanks, Andrea, for the vicarious experience, and all the daydreaming to come.

To the note of one of the previous poster: Princess Alexandra of Kent is available now in the US. I planted one this year, but haven't seen a flower bud yet. It got mine from SW greenhouse