I visited world famous gardens near Birmingham and I couldn’t believe the smell

Back in 1961, a Shropshire lad called David Austin bred his first rose, the Constancy Spry. Since then, on the family farm over in Albrighton, they’re still working to breed ever more beautiful blooms every year. The result is absolutely extraordinary and every blossom looks like a work of art. The fact you can meander through their gardens, home to 700 varieties that are bursting into life to fill the air with their perfume, is incredible. It’s hard to believe that it’s free to visit. I’ve come for the day from Birmingham, keen to explore and perhaps pick myself something up to go in a pot outside my front door. David Austin Roses, as sophisticated as it is, makes everything seem really accessible and I really need that, given I’m no gardener. Read more: I went to Birmingham’s ‘desperately underrated’ attraction and wanted to shove my head in a fly trap Sign up for the Brum Food Club free weekly newsletter for updates on what’s happening in the city’s food and drink scene. There’s a big board on the wall that’s basically ‘roses for dummies’, a key that tells you where in the garden to put your new plant, what each one is best for (fragrance, repeating flowers etc) and how it’ll behave as it grows. Ramblers, shrubs, climbers and little bushes for pots, I want one of everything. I parked up in the overflow car park when I arrived on a nice warm weekend and I hoped it wasn’t going to be overwhelmingly busy. Fortunately, the old farm is laid out with so many nooks and crannies that it feels, often, like there’s hardly anyone else around. I’d got my beak in an almost too-good-to-be-true fragrant Gabriel Oak rose when a squark next to me indicated the arrival of a peacock, its feathers splayed as it began showing off. In the distance, another bird called its response. It’s not all roses, there are other companion plants too, usefully marked up to show what colour roses they go best with. Over by the restaurant (I’ll tell you about that in another story), I fell in love with a pretty black iris. I almost made the error then and there of choosing what I wanted and paying, but the advice had been to explore the rose gardens first. There, you can get a good idea of what works where and how the plants look in borders, creeping along the high brick walls and meandering over pergolas. The gardens are unreal. Just utterly, utterly spectacular. And they’re only going to get better as we head into summer, I’m sure. There are six themed rose gardens in all and each is as magical as the next. Wait, no. Each is as spectacular as the next, with the exception of The Renaissance Garden which is a step above even those. In it, a waterway runs down towards a row of benches for you to stop and, well, smell the roses. The English roses in this area bloom from May until the first frosts of winter and in my dream life, I’d be sitting there on every one of those days. The layout of the gardens is such that you have to nip through archways, round tall walls decorated by bright climbers and through hedges. It feels as though you might get lost. That brings a lot of joy to the children who are visiting with their families and laughter, birdsong and the peacock calls were the soundtrack of the day. There’s a real mix of visitors here, from elderly people in wheelchairs to well-behaved dogs and little babies reaching out for big pink blossoms. There are tourists too, I notice, as a group with cameras discuss the flowers in a language I don’t understand. I get the gist though; surely none of us has seen a rose garden as wonderful as this one before. I’m glad I walked through the gardens before shopping. There’s a whole Patio Garden full of terracotta planters where specimen roses are thriving. It gave me fresh inspiration for that space outside my front door. I was lured by goodies inside the gift shop too. To call David Austin Roses merely a garden centre would be doing it a disservice. It’s a heritage destination, a museum, a park, a movie set-style beauty spot and a wellbeing centre, all at the same time. I’ll give it a couple of weeks and I’ll be back, to see how everything smells under a hot summer sun!