For more than 60 years, David Austin Roses has bred the world’s most prestigious blooms. They are the Air Jordans, the Birkin bags, the Steinway pianos of roses, and have become what we know, smell, and delight in as the modern English rose.
And every year for more than 60 years, David Austin Roses has named one or two new varieties after British historical figures, including Queen Elizabeth II, Emily Brontë, Roald Dahl, and Charles Darwin. Until this year, those people have all been white.
Take a deep whiff of the Dannahue.
At the Chelsea Flower Show in London last month, David Austin Roses introduced the Dannahue, an apricot-colored English shrub rose named after Danny Clarke, a gardener known to his social media followers and to television viewers in Britain as the Black Gardener. The shrub is currently available only in Britain but will be available to American gardeners next year.
Mr. Clarke, whose full given name is Dannahue, went from relative obscurity to a BBC gardening star on “The Instant Gardener” nearly a decade ago and has since become a leading voice for expanding accessibility to green spaces. In addition to running a private garden design company, Mr. Clarke is a designer for Grow To Know, which teaches young people in disadvantaged communities how to garden.
“Everybody can garden,” Mr. Clarke said in an interview from his garden in Bromley, a borough in southeastern London. “It’s something that’s intrinsic.”
Read more at nytimes.com