I live in zone 6a in the Northwest. Here's my take on these 2 roses (just my humble opinion). 1) The strength of Judes fragrance is a tad stronger than LEH, but I prefer LEH actual smell. LEH is lemony rose. She is my husband's favorite rose- for color and scent. She is strongly scented too. It's a tough call. 2) Jude starts out pretty pale, so he does become off-white. LEH always retains the reddish scarlet tinge on her petal edges even if she fades. She has such a broad range of colors to start with. Tangerine and pink and pale yellow. But then Jude has those charming BIG bowls of fluff. Like a peony kind of. Lady tends toward more medium flowers here. 3) LEH is a tidy compact bush for me. Probably my shortest bush in my garden (well normal shaped-- Wm shakespeare is shorter but that's cuz he is a young and confused grower!) LEH's stems are often wine colored- which is really attractive. My jude is pretty young, so I can't comment on his habits but he seems pretty standard- I think he will be bigger than LEH though. 4) I have zero problems with either rose as to foliage. No leaf loss at all. I don't spray chemicals. I had some powdery mildew on every rose, which is easily taken care of with milk and baking soda. 5) LEH repeats great. She always puts on full flushes. I would say she is one of my better repeaters. Jude is too young to comment, but he repeated better than I expected with those big blowsy blooms as a 2 year old. (whereas, Golden Celebration is KILLING ME with his slow reload). 6) We've had really mild winters the last 5 years so I can't say much beyond LEH is fine so far with a bunch of pine needles dumped on her. Jude is in a big pot, so maybe I'll have bad news in spring- but I really doubt it. I have lots of Austins and none have suffered. Lady Emma woke up about middle of the pack. Ione last thought- I had a horrible problem with thrips last year (Lord, please let the snow kill them!) and they liked Jude more than LEH.

Kippy, somehow I missed "Lark." I'll look again next time. I love "Tranquillity" in the catalogue. A white rose is not impossible in that spot; that's why I liked Francis Meilland. LEH sounds and looks great, but I need big and/or tall. CPM is perhaps a better bet, but again, it sure looked pale and faded out there. Nik, my spot for this rose is against a light-colored wall where she will get all-day sun. So Pat A. is out. All the comments on the regular Roses forum were negative for her in this climate, although the photos (thank you, msjam2!) were magnificent. Right now I have to forget about roses and everything else for 24-36 hours and just concentrate on chicken soup, matzo balls, and cleaning the house before twelve guests arrive tomorrow night ... Ay yi yi! Sylvia

I have a grafted LEH, she is still very new, & has only been in the ground since early April, so I can't say what she is like as a fully grown bush, but here is what I observe so far... She was very slow getting started, I planted 4 other grafted bare roots at the same time (2 of which were also Austins) and she was absolutely the last to start putting on good growth, which is why she is also the shortest. However, since the growth has started she has grown steadily, having had 3 or 4 basal breaks even in the last couple of weeks, all of which have quickly grown about 9" over the rest of the plant, and seem like they are still climbing, before this point the plant was maybe 16"' tall. She was also late getting started in the blooming department, but now that she has I have not yet been disappointed by her frequency yet. She definitely blooms in flushes, much like my Munstead Wood, but the resting period between seems to be pleasantly shorter than Munstead (who has been a little stingy for me so far). Since you have one you already know but I'll just say it again, her blooms are absolutely gorgeous. LEH has one of, if not my favorite bloom out of all the roses I have collected so far (only one year in)- such a lovely blend of orange & pink with highlights of yellow- reminds me of a sunset, & the fragrance! It is delicious, like some kind of fruity desert. Maybe this rose is one of the few Austins that just does better grafted, or maybe I just haven't had it long enough to have a negative experience with it yet. I will say that I do feed my roses well, I used lots of compost, rose tone, & bone meal when planting, and I fertilize regularly with my special rotten banana smoothies -I just throw old bananas or banana peels in the blender, fill it with water and blend- then dilute it down so that I have enough for the whole bed-so sophisticated! Sometimes I will add a little molasses or sulfate of potash, or some other organic plant food, but whatever is in there I always dilute it down significantly. Since I have been doing the smoothies I have seen tons of new growth on this rose, and most of my others as well but particularly this one ... so maybe she responds well to potassium? We also have been getting tons of rain here lately with this crazy polar vortex situation, so I am sure that has helped a lot. She- like most of my Austins reeeeaaaally likes water, so maybe try just watering more and making her a banana smoothie every now and then and see what happens? I wish you luck! I personally adore this rose so I hope you continue to try to make her work for you! Jessica This post was edited by Dinglehopp3r on Sat, Jul 19, 14 at 19:20

My Lady Emma Hamilton has done reasonably well for me here. I like the color and the fragrance. Mine has never had a large number of flowers at any given time. Rather, it has had smaller numbers of flowers, but more frequently. The bush tends to grow wider than tall. It is not a large bush. Lady of Shalott is a monster that has lots of flowers all season, but they fade in the sun and do not have much of a fragrance. If you are considering Benjamin Britten, watch out. This one typically gets 10-15 ft tall in my yard. It has plenty of flowers, but they fade from vermilion to a sort of watermelon pink. I can comment on my long-term observations with my Summer Songs. They do sort of okay if we do not have a late, hard freeze. However, this past summer was the first year that any of them made a half-effort at reblooming. The flowers were small, but at least they were there. It may be like some of the other old hybrid perpetuals that had to be at least 6 or 7 years old before they would rebloom. They can be quite showy in the spring, but they are not like Crocus Rose by any stretch of the imagination.