Hello! I see this rose was discontinued by David Austin… If it wasn’t it would be my first David Austin rose… Anyone grow it? Does anyone in the UK have one I could have a cutting of?
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Wow. Introduced in 2015, and discontinued after only ten years?! It’s totally not to my taste, but that seems awfully fast to sink one of your own varieties…
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There could be any number of reasons why…too difficult to propagate; too low a percentage of Grade #1 plants for the propagation method employed; too similar to something already introduced or about to be introduced; lack of sales; inferior disease resistance compared to others in the pipeline, just to name a few. You have to remember, it’s a product. Products are designed to produce profit. Obviously they felt there were other, newer varieties with greater profit potential. Something older has to be moved out to make room for something newer and the Austin machine has been blessed for several decades to have found buyers willing to throw outrageous amounts of money at them for every new variety they pushed out of the pipe.
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I mean I also feel that David Austin junior seems to be taking Austin in another direction. Less of there flowers have myhrr fragrance and they seem to be becoming less fragrant, less floppy, more glossy leaves.
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Unfortunately, that’s my impression too. I miss the elegance which the previous Austin cultivars still had. Especially the very special dark red, purple tones are hardly to find.
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Yeah when I saw them at Chelsea flower show last year, all the roses they brought had light fruity scent… Which blew my mind a bit. You have a unique selling point, which people buy from you even if others have now got something similar… But changing that recipe you risk changing the brand to my mind. Before Austin senior, myrrh was a rarely smelt scent in roses… To my mind having a unique background scent profile for a company is huge!
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This year’s “The King’s Rose” development - as seen during the BBC Gardeners World 2025 Chelsea Week long expose,’ described by Austin junior, drew a big yawn from me.
All l could think was from 40,000 seedlings and 10-13 years development, wilted down … that’s it ? a red and white striped floppy floriferous, bi-colored, rose with profuse bloom ? Didnt l see this color pattern and bloom in R mundi ? Oh well still doing OGRs.
I always seem to have this snobbish attitude to the big commercial announcement let downs.
Think the young one’s gone mainstream.
Though the one time l attended Chelsea in person l thoroughly enjoyed the old man’s booth.
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