With its vigorous, upright growth, it makes a very good climber, both in beauty and performance. It bears medium-sized, cupped blooms of an unusually rich, pure shade of yellow. They have a light Tea fragrance. Named for the British horticulturist who was one of the most influential gardeners of his time. A small shrub of 1.2 metres in its native England, it can grow up to 4 metres into a small climber in warmer areas.
Graham Thomas has been described as "the most popular" of Austin's creations and the one that fixed his popularity with the public; it was the first Austin rose to win the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit at the Chelsea Flower show ten years after its introduction in 1993.
A cross between the white floribunda, 'Iceberg', and another "English" rose, 'Charles Austin', the double flowers are cupped and of a quartered old rose style formation, and described variously as "rich deep yellow', "golden yellow", "amber" and "ochre yellow", that fades paler as the bloom ages. In 1988, Modern Garden Roses noted "Its importance and novelty value lie in its colour. Never before has such a positive yellow colour appeared among roses of this type of growth."
David Austin Roses English Roses combine the form of the flower, the fragrance and general character of an Old Rose with a wide range of colour and the repeat flowering, of a modern Hybrid Tea or Floribunda Rose; they also retain much of the busy, shrubby growth of the old varieties. All David Austin roses have a collective style and reflect one man’s vision. All have beautiful blooms and in most cases wonderful fragrance held on graceful attractive shrubs. A garden of these outstanding roses is hard to beat for sheer exuberance of flower and fragrance.