Cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, is essential for managing the body’s fight or flight response. However, the pressures of modern life have led to persistently high cortisol levels for many, contributing to exhaustion, anxiety, and burnout. The increasing pressures of modern life – work demands, digital overload, and rising living costs - have left many searching for ways to bring calm into their daily routines.

Some roses feel like they have always belonged, nodding gently in the breeze, filling the air with soft fragrance, and settling into a garden as if they were always meant to be there. Rosa Emma Bridgewater is one of them.

There’s something truly special about a living wall, an ever-changing display of colour, scent, and texture. If you’ve ever dreamed of covering a wall, fence, or even a bare corner with a cascade of blooms, English Roses are the perfect choice. With their soft, romantic beauty and repeat-flowering nature, they will transform any vertical space into a floral haven.

Some things stay with you - the scent of a rose in the evening air, the feel of a book well-read, the quiet wisdom passed down from one pair of hands to another. Gertrude Jekyll and Vanessa Bell understood this. They knew that gardens, like stories, are not just about beauty; they are about memory, feeling, and the simple joy of making something your own.

Olivia Rose Austin^® (Ausmixture) is a rose that gently captures the heart with her soft, romantic blooms, fragrant petals, and timeless elegance. Versatile in every sense, she adapts effortlessly to a variety of garden styles, from the charmingly rustic to the sleekly modern and the gracefully formal. Whether you’re creating a welcoming cottage garden, a refined modern space, or an elegant formal retreat, Olivia Rose Austin^® (Ausmixture) is the perfect rose to tie it all together. Here’s how to integrate her into three distinct garden styles.

There’s something truly enchanting about a garden bathed in soft, silvery light. As dusk falls, the moonlight gently highlights the beauty of white flowers, casting an almost ethereal glow. This is the allure of a moon garden - a space where you can escape, unwind, and find solace in the simplicity of nature.

There is an elegance in simplicity, an honesty in working with nature rather than against it. Planting bare root roses is a return to this way of gardening, a method that has stood the test of time. Before plastic pots, before garden centres lined their shelves with ready-made plants, this was how roses were grown: lifted from the field in winter, their roots exposed to the air, then carefully wrapped and sent to gardeners who knew the best things take time.

Let our rose experts show you how to move a rose to a new position in your garden.

For David C.H. Austin, roses were his passion and life's work, each one telling a story of beauty, resilience, and romance. While he is celebrated for creating the English Rose, renowned for its timeless beauty and exceptional fragrance, his extraordinary legacy began with a quiet, serendipitous discovery: ‘Stanwell Perpetual’. 

In the quiet garden of history, roses have always been the unsung narrators of love and symbols of passion, loss, devotion, and yearning. In the first part of our Love Letter to Roses series, we explored the deep roots of these timeless flowers, their symbolic role in the language of love. Now, we turn to the roses themselves, each a character in its own right, bearing the essence of some of the most unforgettable love stories ever told.

For centuries, roses have been nature’s quiet confidants in the art of love, their petals carrying whispers of affection, longing, and devotion. These remarkable blooms have transcended cultures and eras, weaving their way into poetry, mythology, and cherished traditions. As we reflect on their history, we uncover a story as layered and evocative as the flowers themselves - a tale of beauty, meaning, and connection that has stood the test of time.

Pruning your roses is more than just tidying up the garden, it’s a chance to shape them into beautiful forms and encourage blooms from top to bottom. With the right approach, pruning helps your roses to not only stay healthy but also bloom in stunning, well-balanced shapes.