Delicately beautiful and richly fragrant, Rose ‘The Generous Gardener’ is one of the most graceful English roses bred by David Austin. Part of the award-winning English Climbing Rose collection, it can be grown as a tall shrub or trained as a climber on arches, walls, and trellises. With its soft pink blooms, gentle fragrance and reliable performance, this rose lives up to its name—offering beauty and abundance throughout the season.
Variety Type: Old English Rose (can be grown as a shrub or climber)
Breeder: David Austin Roses, UK
Fragrance: Strong, rich and complex with myrrh, musk and old rose notes
Colour: Pale pink with a soft, glowing centre
Bloom Form: Fully double, cupped rosettes
Flowering: Repeat flowering from early summer to first frost
Growth Habit: Tall, arching and graceful
Eventual Height: 4.5m (15ft)
Hardiness: RHS H6 – Hardy in all of the UK and northern Europe (–20°C to –15°C)
‘The Generous Gardener’ is admired for its elegantly formed, soft pink flowers. Each bloom opens from a pointed bud into a full, cupped rosette, revealing a central cluster of golden stamens. The flowers have a luminous quality, blending effortlessly with other plants and adding a sense of grace and refinement to any garden setting.
One of its standout features is the complex and powerful fragrance. It combines the classic scent of old rose with hints of myrrh and musk, creating a rich and lingering perfume that is especially captivating in the warmth of the afternoon or early evening.
This rose offers great versatility. It can be grown as a tall, arching shrub, making a fine specimen in borders or mixed planting schemes. Alternatively, its long, supple stems can be trained as a short climber over arches, trellises, or obelisks. It maintains a neat, bushy shape even when left to grow naturally and pairs beautifully with other flowering plants.
‘The Generous Gardener’ is a repeat bloomer, providing flushes of blooms from early summer right through to the first frosts. Regular deadheading and feeding will encourage even more flowering, making it a reliable and generous performer over several months.
With its soft colouring and refined habit, this rose suits a wide variety of planting styles:
Cottage gardens, where its romantic form enhances informal planting
Formal beds, providing height and fragrance with a gentle palette
Arches and pergolas, where it can be trained to climb
Walls and fences, where it adds vertical interest and softens hard lines
Companion planting, alongside perennials, lavender, or clematis
It’s particularly effective in pastel-themed borders or where a gentle, calming effect is desired.
Sunlight: Thrives in full sun; tolerates partial shade (minimum 4–5 hours direct sunlight per day)
Soil: Moist, well-drained soil enriched with compost or organic matter
Watering: Water deeply during dry spells, especially in the first season
Feeding: Apply a balanced rose fertiliser in spring and again after the first flush
Pruning (climber): Late winter or early spring when the weather warms but before the leaves open
Mulching: Mulch in spring to retain moisture and improve soil quality
Rated RHS H6, ‘The Generous Gardener’ is fully hardy across the UK. Its strong constitution and good disease resistance make it a low-maintenance choice for gardeners of all experience levels.
Whether grown as a graceful shrub or an elegant climber, ‘The Generous Gardener’ truly delivers—beauty, fragrance, and a long season of flowers. Its versatility and charm make it a standout addition to any garden, from small courtyards to large country plots.
David Austin’s Old English Roses combine the romance and fragrance of traditional roses with the health and repeat flowering of modern varieties. ‘The Generous Gardener’ exemplifies this, offering classic form and modern reliability.
Add elegance, fragrance, and continuous blooms to your garden with Rose ‘The Generous Gardener’. A true classic that offers more with every season.
Order today and let this graceful rose become the heart of your garden.
Reasons to Buy Roses from Jacksons Nurseries
(1) ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot
Buy with confidence from the only online rose grower rated ‘Excellent’ 4.9* on Trustpilot. We have been a trusted supplier of roses for 3 generations. We take pride in growing our own roses in the field before potting them up, allowing for meticulous quality control to sale.

(2) Best Prices Guaranteed – Direct from the Grower
Save £££s by buying direct from a grower you can trust. We’ve already price checked all of our roses against competitors so you don’t have to. We are so confident we offer the best value, if you find a rose of the same type and grade elsewhere, we’ll beat it by 10%.

(3) 12 Month Plants Guarantee
We offer a 12 month guarantee on every plant that you buy from us that we have classified as Fully Hardy. If a plant you've bought from us fails in the first year, we will either replace it or refund you. See our satisfaction guarantee page for more details and conditions.

(4) Third generation family-owned nursery specialising in roses
Jackson’s Nurseries is a 3rd generation family owned business which has been growing roses for over 60 years. Roses have always been our specialty, as you can see from the colourful array of blooms in the background to the old family photo below. Today, we offer over 200 different varieties of floribundas, hybrid teas, patio, shrub and David Austin roses. Our roses are initially grown in the field before being potted up for website dispatch.

(5) Grown at altitude to produce strong, healthy plants
Our North Staffordshire nursery is situated at 250 metres above sea level, producing strong, hardy plants that will thrive in your garden. Our nursery sits on clay, so you can be sure our roses can handle heavy soil too.

(6) Help & Advice and Aftercare
We are help to help you with any help and advice you need in choosing, planting and growing your roses before, during and after your purchase from us. The help and advice section of our website has extensive information, see below some examples of articles you may find useful:

How our roses are supplied through the seasons
All our roses are cultivated in an open field and are carefully dug up when the weather is optimal, typically in October or November. While other nurseries supply roses bare root, once our field-grown roses have been potted up we supply them freshly potted. This better protects the roots and helps keep them moist in transit, ensuring your roses arrive as healthy as when they left our nursery. So don’t be alarmed if the compost comes away from the roots when you remove them from the pot.

The roses can remain in their pots over the winter, as long as they are properly watered and fed, but it's best to plant them out as soon as possible. If you do plant them straight away make sure the planting mix is prepared first, hold the root close to the top of the hole as you tip the pot upside down and try to keep as much compost as possible from falling away. They will already be pruned, so no additional pruning is needed except for trimming any dead tips. Regular pruning can start in late winter, the year after planting.

Rose Types
Hybrid Tea Roses (HT)
Hybrid Tea roses are probably the most popular group of roses, available in both bush and standard form they have long flower stems and shapely blooms. Blooms are typically medium to large in size, with many petals which form a distinct central cone.
Floribunda Roses (FL)
Floribunda roses bears its flowers in clusters or trusses, with several blooms open at time in each truss. A popular choice the Floribunda rose group is unrivalled for colour, reliability and longevity as a bedding display however the flower form in generally inferior to the Hybrid Tea.
Patio Roses (PATIO)
Patio roses were introduced in the 1980’s and the group now contains several popular varieties. Generally low-growing roses that were once grouped with the Floribuna group but have now been put in their own group of compact versions. Usually growing about 50cm high they make excellent plants for patio containers or at the front of borders.
Climbing Roses (CLM)
Climbing roses as the name suggests are the perfect choice for covering a wall or screen. Often grouped together with Ramblers, Climbers tend to have stiffer stems, larger flowers but smaller trusses than Ramblers.
Rambling Roses (RAM)
Rambling roses are often grouped with Climbing Roses but the ramblers tend to have a more pliable stems that can be used to run along the soil to use as groundcover or can be used to make weeping standards.
Miniature Roses (MINI)
Miniature roses have increased in popularity in recent years due to their versatility, even grown indoors as temporary pot plants that grow to a maximum height of 40cm. An ideal choice for planting in tubs, edging beds and rockeries.
English Roses (ENG)
Often referred to as Austin or David Austin Roses, English roses are hybrids of old English roses and more modern varieties bread by David Austin to provide the best of both, mixing old rose shapes and scents with more modern colour range, compact habits and repeat flowering.

Planting Advice
Roses like a generous root space, so dig a deep hole approximately twice as wide as the current root system, preferably adding composted organic matter to the soil. Never plant into frozen soil – in winter, await a frost-free period. Carefully remove the pot and gently tease the roots apart to spread them around the hole. Position the plant so that the ‘bud point’ (the place where the shoots emerge from, where the cultivated rose was grafted onto the rootstock) is at soil level. Replace the soil, firming it down gently, then water copiously. Ideally, a general purpose fertiliser should be applied to the surrounding soil as a top dressing. We also highly recommend the use of Rose Rootgrow, which provides a friendly fungus that prevents ‘rose replant syndrome’.

Buying our Roses
Most of our roses are supplied in a 4 litre pot although this may vary slightly depending on rose variety. If the size of pot differes significatly from 4 litres then we will make this clear somewhere on the product page.
Seasonality
Our roses are grown outdoors and as such are subject to seasonal changes. As we sell potted stock throughout the year your rose may not arrive and look like you expect it to. If you are uncertain how your rose will arrive (especially if buying for a gift) then we suggest you contact us prior to making a purchase.
Freshly Potted
Each year a new batch of roses is potted up ready for the following season. Once potted (usually November/December time) they go on sale as 'Freshly Potted'. If you purchase a freshly potted rose and plant it soon after you will find that when removing the rose from the pot there will be a lot of loose soil as the roots will not have had time to grow and bind the compost.

Pruned/Cut Back
In autumn the majority of our roses have finished flowering and begin to look untidy, at this point we prune them quite hard in preparation for the following season. We continue to sell roses throughout the year, when a rose has been pruned in such a way we will identify it has being so. If you are not sure what to expect then please ask prior to making a purchase. Some garden centres/supermarkets sell stock that has been grown abroad or in poly-tunnels so they look 'picture perfect' out of season, while this is ideal for a gift they are short lived once planted.
