Each May, a quiet corner of London becomes something extraordinary. The grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea are transformed into a living showcase of creativity, craftsmanship and horticultural passion. For us at David Austin^® Roses, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a defining moment in the year - the result of many months of growing, planning and collaboration. It’s a chance to share our work, celebrate what we love, and connect with visitors who are as passionate about gardens as we are.

As April arrives and gardens begin to stir into life, one flower stands out not only for its vivid beauty but for its rich connection to history, healing, and literature. Rosa gallica officinalis, known as the Apothecary’s Rose, is more than an ornamental bloom. It carries with it centuries of meaning and a deep-rooted place in both horticulture and the poetic imagination.

With the spring sunshine finally reaching the garden, now is the perfect time to check in on your newly planted bare root roses. They're just beginning to settle in, and the care you give them over the next few weeks will make all the difference to how well they grow and bloom this summer.

Mother’s Day is a time to reflect on the women who have shaped our lives - our mothers, grandmothers, or any maternal figure who has left an imprint on our hearts. While we may not always be physically close to those we love, there is something enduring and quiet that keeps us connected: the beauty of a garden and the plants within it.

We asked Harry Hoblyn, Head Gardener at Charleston, to share his insights into the remarkable garden that surrounds this historic home. Deeply intertwined with the artistic legacy of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, the gardens at Charleston are a living expression of their creativity.

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.

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 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.

Training a climbing or rambling rose is one of the most rewarding tasks in the garden. With a little early guidance, those long, searching stems can be encouraged exactly where you want them, turning walls, arches, fences, and pillars into living tapestries of bloom. Left entirely to themselves, roses will still grow, but thoughtful training brings balance, structure, and a far richer display of flowers.

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.