Of the ones I've tried, I think for me it goes like this-

Best Pink: Brother Cadfael -great fragrance, peony-form
Worst Pink: Miss Alice -boring

Best Yellow:Graham Thomas- I know GC is grand, but GT is a classic
Worst Yellow: N/A- but many here hate The Pilgrim.

Best Apricot: Crown Princess Magareta- nice blooms that change
colors and good fragrance.
Worst Apricot: N/A- but I'm hearing so-so things about
Lady Emma Hamilton

Best Yellow: I agreed - Graham Thomas. At the start I liked TG - but somehow in the summer heat, the flowers looked "strange" and not to my likings, and doesn't repeat well compare to GT.

Best Pink - A shropshire lad - so far, it's a vigorous grower and the first in my garden to have tons of flowering buds compare to Falstaff that only got 2 flowering buds at the moment. Heritage colour fades quickly in summer - the glaring summer light makes it difficult to see the flower form and colour of Heritage. This light pink colour of Heritage can only be captured on a camera during the summer.

I have some new entries - best pink, Bishop's Castle. This one is only available from J&P. It's got great repeat and a scent that is detectable from 3 yards away.

Best yellow for me is Golden Celebration. I planted both GC and GT this year and GC has done much better. I may change this in the future.

Apricot? Tamora is nice. But I'm not getting great repeat. I just planted CPM and so far so good. But I also just planted Pat Austin this year and the color is amazing.

Devon, I'm really loving Austin's new Jubilee Celebration (a dusty pink with yellow shadings at the base of each petal). It has never been out of bloom since it broke dormancy this spring (I put it in as a bareroot this spring). It's only available through Jackson and Perkins right now - Austin gave them exclusive rights, like Bishop's Castle, which as Buford says, is also a great pink.
Golden Celebration is my best yellow. And I'm so in love with Jude the Obscure.
Apricot's a tough one - I have several favorites. Teasing Georgia, a new rose for me, has been exceptional this summer. Tamora, an old favorite, continues to impress me. I'm watching my new Carding Mill & Crown Princess Margareta - they need one more summer to mature before a final rating.

Jubilee Celebration:
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For me Abraham Darby is still my favorite apricot; I love the pink tinge it has, its shape, color and perfume. Tamora to me was boring, no gradations in color and ugly leaves. She went to rose heaven, I'm afraid. I've ordered Carding Mill which looks beautiful in pictures.

My favorite pink so far is Cottage Rose. I've also grown Mary Rose but she shattered quickly and had hostile thorns. I have great hopes for Harlow Carr which had some enchanting pictures on the forum, I'll be curious to see how it turns out.

The only yellow I've grown is Laughing Child which was great in every way but for me it doesn't have that undefinable something that makes my heart race. It's a very individual thing, somewhat like falling in love....

Ingrid

Best pink: There are so many. For me it's Brother Cadfael.

Yellow: I love the pale yellow color of Charlotte. I just planted Golden Celebration this spring and like it too but haven't got to know it well yet.

For pink/peach, sometimes I'll look at a perfect bloom of Abraham Darby and think it must be the most beautiful flower in the world, ever.

I have had good luck with these.

Scepter'd Isle

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Molineux

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Tamora

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Harry's photos are great. I'm hoping Eglantyne will woo me. I think GC is great too.
Crown Princess Margareta is beautiful to me.
Jude steals my heart.
Carla

The following are the best:

APRICOT: Tamora
CRIMSON: William Shakespeare 2000
ORANGE: Pat Austin
PINK: Radio Times
WHITE: Rose-Marie
YELLOW: Molineux

I'm near the coast in southern California - we have coastal conditions 85% of the time. The outstanding Austins in my garden are Molineux, Redoute and Leander. Molineux is absolutely the best Austin we've tried. It makes a very grand vase-shaped shrub nearly 6 ft high with healthy foliage and huges shows of gorgeous large yokey yellow blooms over and over till the rains start in winter. The present flower cycle has been going strong for over a month. It's ridiculously healthy and we do very little to help it along: deep mulch, coffee grounds every couple weeks, a few handfuls of Bandini rose food maybe 3X a year, and then trim it down to about 4 ft in early January. It's simply perfect here: no mildew, doesnt ball, blooms over & over. I would like another English rose just like it in a different color -- any suggestions?
The Leander shrub-climbers have been here since 1985, ordered by the previous owner from Canada. I just throw a huge lot of rose food & compost on them in spring and the display is awesome. If we're lucky, there's some fall bloom. We trim it back every two years - these are HUGE, healthy climbing shrubs 10-16ft with spectacular coral-salmon flowers, handscome foliage and magnificent hips like crabapples. OUr favorite yellow rose Golden Celebration did very well here for 3 yrs, then either the bush declined or the increasingly cloudy cool summers made it increasingly miserable. I sadly shovelpruned it after 6 yrs, but probably will try it again. Redoute was our favorite Austin for 7 or 8 yrs, but it's finally declining in vigor after 12 yrs - we have continually battled aggressive suckers from whatever rootstock its grafted onto and I think it's sapped its strength - it won't bloom much despite feeding & fussing. Tamora is a good bloomer if it gets enough heat & sun, but the leaves are always ugly here. We also have an ownroot Ambridge Rose- very slow start on its own roots, but after 4-5 yrs, finally producing a good crop of large flowers, however the repeat has not been great - it may need more heat. Brother Cadfael was healthy, but not much repeat bloom. Mary Rose is excellent in our zone & blooms repeatedly -- not my favorite hue. St. Cecilia was gorgeous but sickly. English Garden is excellent & reliable here, ditto for Cottage Rose, Lilac Rose, not yet sure if Jude the Obscure can open here. Abe Darby is doing well, but still a youngish ownroot. I had the Prince for about 10 yrs: beautiful flowers, but very ugly shrub.

Mudbird, try Jubilee Celebration(apricot-terra-cotta pink)
and Crown Princess Magareta(peach-yellow). They stay
very healthy and the blooms, well let's just say exquisite. I
got mine, new this year and so far, so good. I have very
high hopes for them to be garden stars next season.

Pink: (Salmon)Lilian Austin
(Med pink)=The Reeve

Apricot: Abraham Darby/Tamora/William Morris(after 6 years)

Orange: Pat Austin
Yellow: Golden Celebration/Teasing Georgia (after 6 years)
White: Winchester Cathedral
Crimson: William Shakespeare 2000

:0) Phyl

My favorite pink is 'Mary Rose'
(bottom left)
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Not the best picture of it, but for yellow I really like
'Graham Thomas'(new to me this year)
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Leander is also a winner in the east and by not cutting it back, at all, I get four bloom cycles or more a year.

Let me add something about "worst" Austins. Austins that come with a combination of Rose Mosaic Viruses are the worst. And before budwood was reimported by Muncy and Ashdown and others, there may have been some propagating for resale of RMV infected plants once the plants were out of patent. In my zone, RMV is often a kiss of death at three to five years. And, yes, I've grown RMV versions of some Austins (Thanks to Park Wayside in 1996, 1997 and 1998) and grown clean versions of the same cultivars (Ken Muncy and Pickering) and clean is so much better you wouldn't think they were the same roses.

Like others above, I love Abraham Darby and Graham Thomas.

I did not like Gruss an Achen which is an old rose that is now classified as an Austin Rose. The blooms were pretty but never lasted more than two days before the petals fell off. It did not make it thru its second winter.

My mom grows Othello which is a purply crimson. It is very lush and healthy even in this harsh zone, and makes a great cutting flower. I am hoping to buy one for myself next spring.

Why is it classified as an Austin?

devon gardener: thank you for the 2 recs! I will look them up pronto.
ann: that's amazing about your 4 bloom cycles with pruning Leander. I wonder if having a real winter helps with the rebloom. We have let our Leanders grow for probably 4 yrs without a trim, but it didn't improve the repeat. In fact, we started trying to trim them back every 2-3 yrs to see if the repeat would get better. Our best repeats have followed the winters with the heaviest rainfall (El Nino years). It's a rose worth keeping even with only a massive spring bloom - magnificent! I agree with you about RMV - I think the earlier imports of grafted Austin roses were generally healthy (all the roses I bought in the early 1990's thrived. When the English roses became quite popular, say from 1996 on, many were weak (& often mislabelled!). I had particularly bad luck with Star roses. Hopefully now the bigger nurseries are paying attention and cleaned up their rootstock. I have had good luck with some ownroot Austins, but certain varieties are hard to get going.

F.Y. I. ,,Although catalogs may list "Gruss an Aachen" with Austin roses, the American Rose Society decides upon which cultivars go into each class, and defines each rose class.

Luxrosa

Or at least puts out repeat blooming buds as if she were an apple tree. If you've read about fruit trees, you may have read about fruiting spurs on apples.
With a mature Leander, after the second year a cane exists, the original leaf axils make short woody stems (think productive spurs) that are graced with bloom buds. And those bloom buds keep on being productive as long as the cane is alive.
Four years ago I almost cut Leander back, but didn't have the heavy duty saw it would have taken. A couple of weeks later, I saw the buds appearing. And they have kept coming and coming.
This drought year, I thought I was loosing some canes but with a little bit of rain water, almost all have releafed out and there are blooms everywhere now.
Hesitation has its place with Leander.

redsox, in his book, 'Old Rose & English Roses', David Austin writes: "...it is so close to the English Rose ideal that I can think of no better section in which to place it." I think it was very observant of him, as at times, the blooms on Gruss do resemble the blooms of an Austin in my opinion.

Randy

I would like to add a vote for Belle Story as a great pink Austin rose. Others come and go but Belle Story just keeps on producing year after year.

Gruss an Aachen blooms may resemble some Austin blooms, but it is definitely not classified as an Austin. Modern Roses 12, which is now out and a book you all should at least take a look at, shows it as a floribunda.

I like to add:

The Best Looking Yellow award goes to: Comtes de Champagne. I love roses with different shades...The flowers are C-U-T-E! Remind me of California poppies.

I don't understand why not many people grow this rose.

I've been very tempted to order Comtes de Champagne just looking at the catalog photos - the flower form is lovely. I also adore California poppies.
My Leanders are mammoth shrubs with canes 8-14ft long. When we trim them every few yrs, we just get rid of dead branches, cut out a few extremely awkward growing branches, trim back a bit on the laterals and then tuck in the long branches - sort of weaving them into huge rounded shrubs, like self-pegging. As they grow in spring the shrubs gradually become looser and wilder. We built a redwood frame underneath to give them a little more support and get the branches up off the ground - it helps to keep them mounded and shapely.

By the way Karen, Harry and Alida. Great pics added here.
Harry, your Tamora pics are some of the best for that rose.

Phil, I think the British classify 'Gruss an Aachen' more accurately than we do. Per Jon, they often class it as an early introduction hybrid-tea.

Randy