David J. C. Austin, chairman of the English rose-breeding firm David Austin Roses for more than three decades, died in July 2026 at his home in Shropshire, England, according to Nursery Management. He was 67.

Austin joined the family firm in 1990, working alongside his father, David C. H. Austin, who had begun breeding roses from a kitchen table in Shropshire and by 1969 had released the company's first range of repeat-flowering English Roses, according to the company's history. The elder Austin, who received an OBE in 2007 for his services to horticulture, worked alongside his son until his death in 2018, after which David J. C. Austin carried the firm on alone as chairman, according to Gardens Illustrated.

Under his direction, the business that had started as a small Shropshire rose grower expanded into offices in Europe, Japan and the United States, according to the company's history, and came to sell around two million roses a year, holding dozens of gold medals from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show along the way, according to Gardens Illustrated. The firm remained headquartered in Albrighton throughout, the same Shropshire village where his father had first potted cuttings decades earlier.

He is survived by his wife, Penny, and their three children, Richard, James and Olivia Austin, who make up the third generation of the family working in the business, according to Gardens Illustrated. In a joint statement posted on the David Austin Roses website, his children said: "First and foremost, Dad was a gardener. That was at the heart of who he was. He carried our grandfather's vision with humility and an unwavering sense of responsibility, always putting the roses, the family business and its people before himself." They described him as kind and modest, with a playful spirit, a sense of adventure and, in their words, "a real enjoyment of life."

News of his death drew tributes from across British horticulture. The Royal Horticultural Society said it was deeply saddened, Nursery Management reported, and Monty Don, presenter of BBC's Gardeners' World, wrote that "what legacy he leaves - millions of exquisite roses that will live on for so many, enriching all our lives," according to AOL. Hundreds of comments accumulated on the company's Facebook post announcing his death, Nursery Management reported.

David Austin Roses said it would keep operating under its existing leadership team alongside the next generation of the Austin family. The firm his father started at a kitchen table, and that Austin spent his working life extending into gardens well beyond Albrighton, keeps his name on its roses and his children in its offices, the clearest measure of what he built.