Being on a garden tour is great for many reasons. One of the benefits I seldom mention is that I often hear interesting gardening industry news from some of the more experienced visitors.
This time, however, the news was not good. A longtime gardener came up to me and said “I always visit your garden, but this time, I have a favor to ask you.”
She wanted a small cutting from my Abraham Darby rose (shown above), because hers had died for whatever reason and she’d heard David Austin had cut the rose, along with many others, from its offerings. Of course, I obliged.
I had some ambivalence about taking a cutting from a shrub that is doing okay, but not exactly bursting with vitality. (I’ve never had perfect conditions for roses.) But I also felt a rant coming on. Why? Why would a company stop producing and selling a variety like Abraham Darby? It has huge, complex blooms and – I am not alone on this – one of the best scents by far of any rose I’ve ever sniffed.
Apparently, David Austin cut its offerings by at least 30 percent back in 2020. I had never heard this, but it wasn’t exactly big news in the papers and magazines I read. And I am not part of the horticultural industry here. (Maybe some of my fellow Ranters heard about it.)
The other varieties on the chopping block included Evelyn, Sharifa Asma, Lady Emma Hamilton, and others – I could not access the whole list. For some reason they are keeping Darcy Bussell, which I have, and the blooms of which blow out within a day.
As we know, this happens all the time. My Rudbeckia lacianata ‘Golden Glow’ (above), never available at any nursery I visit, hasn’t been offered online for some time. Fortunately, it spreads vigorously, so I just make sure to edit with a light touch. I also doubt I’d ever find my ‘Alpenglow’ macrophylla hydrangea (below) if I ever needed to replace it.
I get why companies do this. There’s always the newer, shinier things to offer instead. We gardeners do get attached to our favorites though. Especially when it comes to roses. And what were the reasons?
Anyway, I’m glad I heard this. Abraham Darby will be getting some tender loving care next season!
“Apparently, David Austin cut its offerings by at least 30 percent back in 2020.” One of the guests on the Rose Chat podcast mentioned that covid during 2020 lead to fewer workers on the same field to ensure adequate social distancing, which lead to a decrease in supply of roses (and similarly for shipping). Maybe this cut in offerings is related to covid, and not a marketing decision?
In that case, one might hope for a temporary shortage, not a permanent cut.
Abraham Darby is still available, on its own roots, from Heirloom Roses in Oregon. It’s not especially vigorous in my part shade coastal location. The flowers do smell amazing and last a long time. Great rant!
The Bug Box stores have been treating plants as a commodity, like breakfast cereal, for quite some time. We try to go to small local nurseries, but they don’t always have what we’re looking for. Now even some of the small nurseries are doing the same, trying to keep up with trends and novelties and not carrying the “standards” (zinnias, annual salvias, etc). Looks like the mindset is spreading to formerly dependable, larger nurseries now, too. Pretty sad.
*Big Box stores
Love Bug Box stores!
There’s another Rose Chat Podcast listener here!
I think that sometimes rose breeders will stop offering an older rose because they have newer and actually better cultivars they want to sell instead; for instance, more disease resistance, better fragrance, or more heat/cold tolerance. Of course they have limited space in their fields so one of the older varieties has to go. I’m grateful for places like Roses Unlimited in SC that still sells many old varieties of rose as own-root plants. Or Antique Rose Emporium with all their Old Garden Rose (OGR) varieties.
Maybe it sometimes has to do with patents too? I know if a rose is still under patent it’s ethically dubious to share cuttings, but so many roses are out of patent now and cuttings are guilt-free. Possibly companies stop producing their own roses once they’re out of patent?
I was very sad some years ago when I could no longer get a favorite pansy mixture, Antique Shades. It was so perfect on our terracotta tiled front terrace!
Antique Shades, also my favorite pansy in terra cotta pots. Greatly missed!
I just did a Google image search and have fallen in love with Antique Shades pansy. I found this nursery that carries seed: https://www.harrisseeds.com/products/03957-pansy-imperial-antique-shades-f1?variant=28918096849¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuaiXBhCCARIsAKZLt3kjq8fsWPyQswUMv4DTEZKY9DkD8dbCVesmziuFzQ5p_T9EX4-gWGwaAo_cEALw_wcB
Reminds me of Vita Sackville-West rediscovering old roses. Which suggests this problem has been around for a long time. (and I wonder how many horrid hydrid tea roses have been – thankfully – lost?)
One does have to remember what an experienced nursery owner once told me when I said one of DA’s roses was short lived, “David Austin is in the business of selling roses.” As are the other nurseries.
Your ‘Abraham Darby’ is gorgeous and I thank you for posting, because I miss roses. Rose Rosette Virus took upwards of 30 from my gardens. I have very few survivors left. It breaks my heart to think about losing 2 in particular–‘Mutabilis’ and a beautiful salmon pink heirloom planted by my grandmother in 1944. I’m praying for researchers to find resistant varieties.
Mine is a Carol Mackie daphne that had survived for 10 years (despite Scott Beuerlein’s comments about daphnes. We have had lovely emails about this.). A winter storm finally did it in and I cannot find it again. I did find one but they won’t deliver it to my area. We all have plants that we love.
Abraham Darby is one rose I’ve always wanted to grow. I am a sucker for a warm pink with hints of coral/orange.
Oh yes, warm/soft pink with coral/orange tones is peak beauty for me too!
I echo the weakness of Abraham Darby…have lost several myself. I can’t fault David Austin for dropping it, however. Between plant patent running out and what has happened in the rose business, I’d guess 30% is a small number compared to what the other major players have dropped. I can’t find anything but Knockouts, Drift roses, or bagged Big Box Grade 1 roses. Luckily, the few mail order nurseries left have what I want and I’ll give them my business and try my best to help keep them afloat until the world wakes up to the loss.
Rose cultivars, most of them, age. The original seedling of which there is only one, is propagated from cuttings, and gradually the cuttings grown from cuttings grown from cuttings (etc, etc) become tired, like a xerox copy made from a copy made from a copy (etc, etc). They might also pick up viral infections along the way that also weaken. Abe is still available at specialist rose nurseries. My first one was fabulous. The subsequent plants bought a decade later were not nearly as vigorous. Planned obsolescence–no, probably not.
Then sometimes you can find a ridiculously healthy, blooms-like-crazy copy, one many times closer to the original seedling, because it’s been growing in a friend’s garden for 35 years, and if so ask for a cutting–your plant if carefully rooted and cared for may turn out to be ridiculously healthy, too. That’s happened to me.
Then there’s a rose such as ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’, first introduced around 1843–perhaps the one available now is not quite the same, or perhaps it is, but it is still fabulous!!