Claire Austin with a display of herbaceous beauties at Shrewsbury Flower Show.
Ken Tudor looks forward to incorporating some of Claire Austin’s beautiful blooms into his summer garden
Top plantswoman Claire Austin grew up in the greatest rosefields in the world – and ended up falling in love with other fabulous flowers like irises, peonies and day lilies, becoming one of the UK’s most respected growers of traditional garden plants.
She made her name as a grower at her father’s company – David Austin Roses, the world’s largest rose-breeding nursery at Albrighton – before moving on to Shifnal and to Shawbury to grow herbaceous beauties for the rich and famous and the world’s great plant collectors.
A field of irises makes a spectacular sight.
It was in the 1980s that I first bumped into Claire and her love for herbaceous plants, when I was visiting her father. Among the large fields of roses was a section with irises and peonies with the lady herself working away, looking appreciatively into the faces of the blooms.
I wandered over and our acquaintance was made; an article followed, highlighting how she was going off at a tangent from the core business of roses which was to become world-famous in the next decade.
Umbrella
Her expertise continued to grow as the former art college student ran the plant centre at Bowling Green Lane, but after 18 years she was to leave the sheltering umbrella of the ever-expanding empire run by the two Davids, her father and brother, to set up Claire Austin Hardy Plants at a two-acre site in Shifnal.
It was there that I saw the intoxicating sight of rows of irises in the field. But in the cause of expansion Claire and her husband Ric Kenwood moved to set up a nursery at the Shawbury Garden Centre, creating a production line of these wonderful plants, a garden – and a reputation for wonderful stands at Chelsea, Malvern and Shrewsbury shows.
“The move was good for us because it has allowed us to expand into areas we were unable to touch in Shifnal,” she says.
Just down the road from the nursery at Edgebolton, a mile or so out of Shawbury, they have 13 acres, where there are 50,000 plants, including 450 varieties of irises, which will soon be open to the public.
To walk the nursery with her in the early spring is inspirational, chatting as the peonies shoot in their pots, iris swords emerge,
and the other herbaceous plants wake from their winter slumber to search for a place in the sun.
It was good to hear of the philosophy followed by Claire and Ric, about what she wanted to grow and why. “We believe in selling only what we know to be a good garden-
worthy plant,” she explains. “All the varieties we list have been grown by us to see how hardy they are and whether they are of true garden value.
“We grow as many of our own plants as we can and use the Petersfield peat-free compost,” she says.
Claire is anxious to be entirely frank, and says that the decision to adopt the compost used by the National Trust is not based on “political correctness” born in the big peat debate.
“But over the last eight years we have found it to be an excellent growing medium for most perennials,” she tells me, popping a peony out of a pot to show fat juicy shoots ready to burst into the sunlight. “It is a lovely compost to work with,” she says.
Hemerocallis ‘Ed Murray’.
“I like to think that we grow good border perennials, plants that will grow well in the border year after year. I suppose we provide the traditional plants, things like the irises, peonies, hemerocallis, lupins, delphiniums, poppies and phlox.
Cold
“We test the plants every year, and by and large that means that they will grow across England, because this part of Shropshire is known to be very cold,” she says. Indeed, Shawbury has at times been the coldest spot in England and Wales.
Claire does like to grow day lilies, although they are not so popular with the general growing public.
“I have a theory that it may be because they are at their best in July and August when people are on holiday!”
Ric points out that this public apathy for the plant persists despite the ease which they will grow. “A day lily is a plant which can be bought, put into the ground, watered and left to its own devices, and it will flourish,” he explains.
The discussion becomes a family affair as David Austin, paying a visit to his daughter’s nursery, suggests that there could be another reason. “People wrongly have this view that they do not flower very well because the blooms only last a day.”
David, the man who started off the Austin dynasty when he replaced beef cattle with roses on the family farm, is rightly proud of Claire’s reputation. “She has without any doubt the largest collection of irises and peonies in the country,” he says.
‘Claire Austin’ – the best white rose bred by her father.
He marked his pride two years ago when he named the best white rose he has bred ‘Claire Austin’, and at the same time named an attractive pink ‘Princess Alexandra’. A few months later the nurserywoman and the Princess discussed their love of plants at Claire’s stand at Shrewsbury Flower Show.
He has been rightly proud too of her writings, with her latest book Irises: A Gardener’s Encyclopaedia winning the Garden Writers’ Guild award for best reference book.
Summer kicks off soon, and Claire will be helping gardeners prepare when she exhibits at Malvern Spring Gardening Show (May 7–10), showing her awesome collection of standard dwarf irises which people are appreciating more and more.
Then the stunning iris fields, with tens of thousands of flowers blooming away, will be open to the public at Wytherford Road at Shawbury on May 30 and 31 and June 6 and 7. Admission to this “sea of colour” is free.
David Austin, the international doyen of roses, is right about his daughter’s nursery and writing skills – she is a marvellous grower and writer and has a “rosy” future!
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