Here's a link to an interesting article on the retirement of certain Austin varieties of English roses, including one of my favorites, A Shropshire Lad, as well as Munstead Wood.

https://www.theguardian.com/en...



New, more robust varieties are also being introduced, such as Dame Judi Dench.

Has anyone here found the retirees not to be sufficiently "robust"?

A Shropshire Lad grows well in my garden, but three attempts to grow Munstead Wood here failed.

porkpal said: Has anyone here found the retirees not to be sufficiently "robust"?

A Shropshire Lad grew well in my former home's garden, too. I loved The Prince when I grew it there, and wish I could still get it. If I recall, the The Squire was supposed to be a better replacement. It's nice too, but I preferred The Prince.

In another month's time my roses will be covered in blackspot again but I've never lost any due to it. My Munstead Wood is doing very well and A Shropshire Lad is also looking good. Golden Celebration was a dud here, and so is Charlotte, who I will be culling next winter. I remember someone telling me once that yellow roses would not do well here but I can't remember the reason why.

I have never planted any Austins assuming my minimalist approach to rose care and my very un-English climate would make it futile. I have, however, always admired them and am sorry to see any rose "abandoned".

Mike, thanks for the link. I just read the article. Do any of us really believe that DA is retiring old varieties because of climate change? I certainly don't!

After reading the article, my first thought was that DA introduced a lot of roses that are prone to disease, but they blamed climate change.
I respect business practices. Even though they retire so many popular roses, that's their choice, but such a far-fetched statement is just ridiculous.

My intent in sharing this article wasn't to spark a debate on climate change, but to share an article about one of the world's largest rose hybridizers' inventory decisions. But since the question was asked whether any of us believe these decisions are based on climate change, I'll weigh in with my thoughts.

I move between two worlds on a daily basis. There's the world that we all live in, where climate change is debated in media outlets by editorial writers, talk show hosts, politicians, advocacy groups, and everyday citizens of all stripes.

The other world I live in is Wall Street in New York City's Financial District, where I work as a research analyst in the bond markets. In this role I come into contact with the world's largest corporations on a daily basis. In that world, climate change isn't debated like it is in newspapers, talk radio, and on the Web. Instead, it's typically viewed as a pragmatic business concern that is regularly incorporated into – quite literally – billions of dollars' worth of business plans, decisions, and actions all over the globe. These decisions and actions aren't made by climate change activists; they're made by conservative business leaders at the highest levels of corporate governance.

So it seems entirely consistent with global business trends to read that David Austin Ltd – which has been testing and hybridizing roses for decades – takes current and anticipated climate conditions into account when making product decisions. I see it across hundreds of businesses every day.

Mike, I so appreciate your very informed comments about billion dollar corporations making decisions based on climate change. One could possibly wonder if they're doing it based on public perception and marketing, or reality. But sorry, I still don't believe for a moment that DA is basing their decisions on climate change. IMO, it's their ruthless attempt to corner their market and suppress their old roses from being sold to encourage people to buy their new offerings.

The UK had an extremely wet Spring in 2022 followed by the hottest temperatures ever recorded - reaching 40C for the first time. It was 63F yesterday - in mid November. Many gardens up and down the country are trialing drought resistant plants. So I feel that DA are not using excuses, they are acting on reality. Some roses just won't thrive in this climate.

DA didn't just start phasing out roses this year. They have been doing it systematically over the years. That's their business decision. Even if I personally don't like it, at least I can understand it. As for the extreme climate, not only for roses, every area is different and has its best plants to grow. DA roses were never known for being heat tolerant. However, developing new varieties and retiring old ones IMO are two things. The biggest defect for DA roses is disease issues. I grow 200 roses. Even though my climate is perfect for growing DAs, only 6 of them are doing OK in my urban garden, and I'll probably replace two of them in one year. I'm not denying climate change or trying to convince anyone. I'm purely getting impatient with the PR rhetoric full of political correctness.

Okey, ranting finished. Let's see some rose pics.

Happy Chappy looks so bright today.


Rosarium Uetersen with wings.


And I love my tiny Mary Beth so much!

Sorry. So happy to see these rose photos and forgot they are not DAs.

I am definitely changing the roses and other plants that I grow here. When I first started planting roses on this farm, I had no trouble growing more than 300 varieties. However, I have had to select more carefully as time went by. Our colder winters and dryer summers have made it unrealistic to grow many earlier favorites. Industries worry about the financial investment; I worry about the time expenditure.

Here's an informative video interview with Matthias Meilland, who explains how the House of Meilland (another one of the world's largest hybridizers) is developing new roses that are adaptive to climate change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... And here's a link to an article about Meilland entitled, "Breeding Roses that are Ready for Climate Change Effects": https://www.floraldaily.com/ar...

Regarding Austin roses, they come with a 5-year guarantee, so naturally DA Ltd is going to retire less robust roses when they have superior-performing alternatives to replace them. The development of better products and retirement of older ones go hand-in-glove inside any company's inventory decisions. I can't imagine that DA Ltd would use up precious and expensive growing fields to produce older, less robust roses that would cost them refunds and harm their reputation, when they can use those same growing fields to produce superior roses that will satisfy their customers.

There's nothing unique about rose growers creating new hybrids to adapt to climate change. Wine producers are developing new grape hybrids in response to changing conditions:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com.... Coffee growers are also using new hybrids for the same reason:
https://cordis.europa.eu/artic.... And the same is being done with corn hybrids:
https://www.bayer.com/en/news-... The list goes on and on, so why should rose hybridizers be any different?

My point in sharing this is not to try to convince anyone whether climate change is real or not. I haven't shared what I happen to believe about climate change, and there's no reason for me to care what anyone else believes, so I wouldn't spend any time trying to convince anyone of my own beliefs, whatever they might be. Instead, my purpose has been to share information with the Forum's members about the business decisions being made by rose hybridizers that will affect the plants we are able to grow in our gardens. Like me, I doubt the rose growers would care what anyone on this forum believes. The point is, the growers know what THEY believe, and are making inventory decisions in accordance with that.

Well said.

Mike, I don't think anyone here is debating whether climate change is real or not, or whether many companies are doing things to respond to it. We're just skeptical, given DA's long history, that they are using it as an excuse for their abandoning their older varieties, and aggressively preventing their former licensees and other vendors from selling them when off-patent. I do actually think that DA cares what people are saying about them, and it isn't good lately. Not so much on this forum, but certainly elsewhere. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. OTOH, I'm beginning to root The Prince, and I'd be happy to send you a rooted plant if I'm successful... assuming I'm not breaking any ag laws for CA or NY!

SusaninSB has the right idea: if you want the discontinued roses to survive, propagate them yourself.

Susan, I think it's plausible that DA may retire some varieties that go off patent in an effort to optimize revenue from newer introductions. But one of the roses mentioned in the article that are being retired is Munstead Wood, which doesn't go off patent for another 7 years in 2029. So clearly there are other reasons.

So since it is still covered by a patent, we are not allowed to propagate it even though they no longer sell it? Not logical.