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Featured Rose - Internet Special Offer
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We plan to feature different varieties of English Roses and explain a little more about their characteristics and uses in the garden. All the roses selected will be highly recommended and have our standard 12 month guarantee of quality.
Details of our special offer
While a rose is our current featured rose, the internet price will include a 10% discount against our normal price. This applies to all internet orders placed for bare root roses. We are sorry that our discount no longer applies to previous featured roses.
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Darcey Bussell - our current featured rose
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Our featured rose makes a wonderful choice for USDA zones 5 to 10. The blooms are upright facing and are held in small clusters. Their color is rich crimson, often with attractive hints of mauve as the blooms age.
This rose will remain bushy and compact even in the warmest areas, making it ideal for the front of rose beds or the mixed border. It is very tempting to cut a few blooms to create a posy for the home, although Darcey Bussell, will only last a few days in a vase (unlike its namesake, our newest cut rose variety Darcey, which has been bred specifically for the vase).
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Many of David Austin’s the more compact English Roses are great for container gardening. Use Darcey Bussell in a large, decorative planter or a half barrel to brighten up the yard.
Regular customers may recall that this rose sold out very quickly in its first season. This is the first year we’ve had sufficient stock to offer it as a featured rose for a short while.
Darcey Bussell requires no special care, other than good soil preparation, feeding and mulching. In summer, to encourage quicker repeat-flowering, just try to get into the habit of wandering round the garden, deadheading the roses as the blooms fade. If you prefer, you can very lightly summer prune, which means that you remove about 6” or so of the stem as you deadhead the roses. Darcey Bussell particularly enjoys areas of dry heat and is hardy to zone 5. In winter, prune down to about half the size.
Buy Darcey Bussell shrub rose
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Our discount only applies to our current featured rose, which is Darcey Bussell - see above.
We have decided to keep the extra information about our previous featured roses available online. All featured roses will be exceptionally desirable and garden-worthy varieties and are well worth considering if you're not sure which rose to choose for your garden.
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This rose has cupped flowers that eventually open out into beautiful rosettes, packed with around 90 petals. The flowers are large and are gracefully poised on the branch. The color is a gorgeous, soft peachy-pink in the centre, the outer petals becoming a paler shade as the bloom ages. There is a deliciously fruity fragrance in the tea rose tradition.
A Shropshire Lad is reliably winter hardy to zone 5 when grown as a shrub. It will survive all but the harshest winters even in zone 4 with good winter protection. This rose is strong and vigorous as a shrub, reaching 5 x 4ft.
In zones 6 or above, it may also be grown as a climber, reaching around 8 feet high. This variety is rather less suited to the hottest areas of the US as the heat tends to encourage growth at the expense of repeat-flowering.
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A Shropshire Lad is exceptionally healthy. It has an elegant habit and few thorns. The glossy, deep green leaves and vigorous growth are very typical of the Leander Group of roses.
Grown as a shrub, it is ideal for the middle or back of the border. In warmer areas, summer pruning will help to maintain your desired height and encourage quicker repeat-flowering.
It may also be trained as a wonderful short climber and is shown on the left growing in The Renaissance Garden at David Austin Roses UK gardens, trained on a pillar.
A Shropshire Lad was named in honour of A. E. Houseman's poem. David Austin was born on the Shropshire border, so he is also a Shropshire lad.
Buy A Shropshire Lad shrub rose
Buy A Shropshire Lad climbing rose
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Scepter'd Isle was chosen as the cover illustration for David Austin's book 'The English Roses' as he felt that it perfectly represents the spirit of his roses.
The name was taken from William Shakespeare's romantic, idyllic description of England in Richard II:
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle...
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea...
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It is a pretty rose, with soft pink chalice-shaped blooms that open to reveal golden stamens.
The blooms have a powerful fragrance - an outstanding example of the classic English Rose scent based on the myrrh note first introduced with Constance Spry. Scepter'd Isle won the Henry Edland award for fragrance from the UK's Royal National Rose Society.
This beautiful shrub rose has a bushy, upright habit, holding the flowers well above the foliage. It flowers freely and almost continuously. In warmer areas, summer pruning will encourage quicker repeat flowering while helping to maintain the desired height.
4 x 2.5ft
Buy Scepter'd Isle
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We love Harlow Carr, because this rose has so many of the characteristics we value, combining great beauty with exceptional performance. The medium-sized blooms are of purest rose pink. The flowers begin as delightful, little cups, developing into cupped rosettes of perfect Old Rose formation, with a button eye at the centre. It is one of our most strongly scented varieties with a classic Old Rose fragrance.
Its growth is exceptionally vigorous and healthy, forming an attractively bushy, yet compact, shrub. It is exceptionally free-flowering, bearing its blooms right to the ground. The foliage is similar to that of Old Roses - bronze at first, becoming green with age.
Harlow Carr thrives in many different places and positions. This variety will grow quite happily in areas of partial shade that receive at least 4 - 5 hours of sunlight each day, provided it is not planted underneath the branches of a tree.
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Harlow Carr is deserving of a prime spot in a border; it also makes a superb, medium-sized hedge.
When pruned hard it remains compact and flowers well making it ideal for the front of the border, edging a path or growing in large pots and containers. For exceptional repeat-flowering, dead-head the flowers after they have finished blooming.
David Austin had described the blooms as having 'gem-like beauty'. They are wonderful for cutting to create beautiful displays in the home.
Named after the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden in Harrogate, England, to mark the 200th anniversary of the formation of the Society.
Dimensions: 4ft high x 3ft wide.
Buy Harlow Carr bare root rose
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This is one of the most magnificent English Roses, producing many giant, deeply-cupped, golden-yellow flowers. These have a strong fragrance of the tea rose type, later developing deliciously fruity notes which have been compared to citrus, lychee, Sauternes wine and strawberry!
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Each goblet-shaped bloom is filled with many intertwining petals which, unlike those of more stridently-coloured yellow roses, have the utmost delicacy and charm. Golden Celebration has excellent repeat flowering, although later in the season, the blooms are often slightly smaller, taking on more of a cupped rosette shape.
It forms a nicely rounded, slightly arching shrub with excellent shapely growth and healthy, glossy foliage. It is very reliable and easy to grow. In warmer areas, it may benefit from summer pruning. Golden Celebration can also be trained as a fragrant short climber and is ideal for walls, trellis and rose pillars.
Buy bare root shrub rose
Buy bare root climbing rose
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This rose is famous for its beautiful and perfectly-balanced old rose scent which many people consider to be the quintessential rose fragrance. It is one of the most strongly scented varieties available and was named in honour of the Victorian garden designer and author.
When grown in the hottest areas of the US, Gertrude Jekyll may not repeat flower as well as some of our other varieties. We recommend this variety for gardeners living in zones 4 - 8.
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Gertrude Jekyll's rich, glowing pink blooms gradually open out rather surprisingly from little scrolled buds into lovely, large rosettes. These have a beautiful old rose formation. The foliage is very similar to a Portland Rose with quite widely spaced matt-green leaflets. This rose is free-flowering, very healthy and reliable in every way, and therefore makes a good choice for newcomers to gardening.
This rose can be grown in mixed or pure rose borders, but is perhaps best placed near to the house or along a path where the perfume can be enjoyed. It will form a vigorous, medium sized shrub with an upright habit.
It can also be trained as a short climber, perfect for walls and small archways. Fan out some of the stems to each side as this will encourage the growth of even more flowering stems.
Petal count: 80 approx
Dimensions: 4ft high x 3.5ft wide or 8ft as a climber.
Buy bare root climbing rose
Buy bare root shrub rose
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Gertrude Jekyll won the prestigious James Mason award in 2002 for a rose which has given particular pleasure to rose growers. In the UK during 2006 it was voted the Nation's favourite rose by BBC television viewers.
This variety is closely related to the Portland Roses: a small but very valuable group of beautifully-scented old roses which were at their most popular during the mid-19th century.
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Crown Princess Margareta - our first featured rose
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One of the most perfect of all blooms, the outer, incurved petals forming a frame for the numerous petals within. The strong, fruity fragrance and the lovely, fashionable color add extra desirability to this versatile rose.
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Crown Princess Margareta will form a very attractive shrub with a long flowering season and is ideal for use in mixed borders.
The broad arching growth makes it possible to grow Crown Princess Margareta as a free-standing rose set into a lawn.
To create this effect, plant small groups of three or five spaced about 2 ft apart. When pruning, shape the whole group into the form of a single, large shrub.
5 ft. x 4.5 ft. as a shrub
Petal count: 120 approx
Buy Crown Princess Margareta
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Although Crown Princess Margareta is usually thought of as a beautiful shrub rose, with a little encouragement this variety can be trained into a beautiful English Climbing Rose of up to 10ft.
English climbing roses will produce stems generously from the base of the plant, flowering almost down to the ground and creating much greater impact than the average climbing rose.
As a climbing rose, Crown Princess Margareta is ideal trained against a wall, perhaps by an entrance where the fragrance can be enjoyed.
This variety also makes a good choice for a small obelisk or pillar as the growth is not so vigorous that it will overwhelm the structure.
When growing against an arch, plant one rose at the foot of each side of the arch. As the roses grow, tie them in so that they eventually meet in the middle.
Buy Crown Princess Margareta Climber
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For cutting to create flower arrangements:
The sophisticated color and rich fragrance make it tempting to cut this rose for the home, although flowers will only last a few days in water.
For shaded areas:
This rose, like many other English Roses will perform well in partial shade providing there is not too much competition from roots of trees or shrubs and no overhanging branches. It does need at least 4-5 hours sun each day.
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