Crocus Rose, an Austin English Rose will fit your requirements perfectly. Pale yellow, or off white depending on age of blooms and temperature. Fragrant. Should be cane hardy in Toronto, hardy to the snow line here 60 kms SW of Ottawa. Bomb proof healthy, bushy and vigorous. Also nearly continuous bloom, big vase shaped shrub, approximately 100 cms ( 3.25 to 3.5 feet ), tall and wide. It is however very thorny and very bushy (wondefully vigorous. Mine, in its third year has begun to throw some longer canes, though these can be cut back.

Crocus rose is one of David Austin's best for cold climates, disease resistance and rebloom.

Cheers,

Rideau Rose Lad,

Here is a link that might be useful: Crocus Rose at HMF Roses

Blanc double de coubert wouldn't meet your criteria. Mine is 4 o 5 years old and is much wider than tall--about 5 ft wide and 3-4 ft tall.

Sorry I have not advice on the others. Good luck in your search.

Kate

Second Crocus Rose...

You can get rugosas on root stock so they wont sucker, otherwise, yes most of them would sucker. I find most rugosas given time will achieve greater hieghts in the northeast than other parts of the country.

However, if you are going to get Austins Crocus, go ahead and get Austins winchester cathedral, both will be mostly hardy for you, maybe some tip damage. Both will have varying degrees of scent mostly light, but can be achieved on certain days, depending on the weather and your nose.

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oh yes, rugosas sucker! My less suckering and more vase-shaped rugosa is therese bugnet but watch how it behaves in your climate, might be mine is so just becuase its too hot for her.

I think that you should look if there is a rose by david austin hard enough to live in z5... BTW seems that z5 is densely populated! The majority of posts here are either from z5 or z9-10 :-) You are lucky.

If you are going with Austins, The Pilgrim is a most gorgeous pale yellow and wonderful bloomer. It can big here in PNW, but with pruning and in zone 5 I think it would stay at the height you want. Winchester Cathedral is also a good bloomer about 5' tall and not too wide for me,lovely white blooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: the pilgrim

Thank you for all the suggestions so far!

As far as yellows, I looked up the Crocus Rose and it sounds lovely, although possibly not quite the right colour. Austin described it as a soft apricot paling to cream, and I was wanting more of a cool yellow colour :)

The Pilgrim sounds really beautiful, in bush form. Charlotte sounds almost the same, however. Both yellow, hardy and upright with The Pilgrim having more of a myrr scent and Charlotte more of a tea scent. What are the major differences between these 2 roses? I was reading through older threads that suggested that The Pilgrim was a stingy bloomer that had blackspot trouble. Also read that with the more vigorous DA roses (like The Pilgrim), own-root was the better option. I would lean towards The Pilgrim at this point, but I'm not sure what the difference between the two roses is?

And thank you, I did think that Blanc Double de Coubert wouldn't be the right shape for the space, but wasn't sure! Any comments on Boule de Neige or Blanc de Vibert? I was also thinking possibly of KronPrincess Viktoria (Bourbon, sport of Souv. de la Malmaison). It repeats and sounds like an upright shrub . . . again, I'm not sure it will get tall enough in a zone 5 garden. Being borderline hardy, I'm thinking it might stay too small?

As far as Winchester Cathedral, I've heard that the scent can be quite obnoxious for some people. It is described as honey and almond, which doesn't sound so bad :) I had always thought of Winchester Cathedral as a short climber, but it sounds like I was wrong. It is at least as wide as it is tall . . . I'd love to hear opinions on the growing habit of this one as well.

For a white rugosa hybrid, what about Sir Thomas Lipton? I have him grafted so there is no suckering, and he is GORGEOUS. Growing into a nice vase shape as a stand-alone shrub. He's only a few years old, but coming along nicely. The blooms are generally snow white, sometimes going to a rich cream color. Wonderfully fragrant. Here he is looking a bit more cream colored:


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Here's a picture of the bush from earlier this year. He's holding that width but getting taller now--probably about 2 feet taller than in this photo, about 3-4' across and 5-6' tall now:


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Rideau Rose lad,
I found the Pilgrim to be a very generous bloomer here, not stingy at all, and not particulary prone to blackspot in my no spray garden. It is a very pale and soft yellow. The scent is pleasant to my nose that I thought was tea like, Mine is from Pickering, grafted on multiflora. I have never grown Charlotte so can't compare. I like the scent of Winchester Cathedral, but it is myrhh-like, if you don't care for that scent, I like it fine. It is healthy also, and theoretically either of these could be trained as a climber in my zone, but I have always pruned and treated them like as shrub roses and shaped them to fit the space they were planted in. In zone 5 I doubt either would get big enough to climb. I have grown both these roses for many years and they have been reliable performers for me. The Pilgrim might have to be pruned to keep it from getting too wide.

oops, sorry I see the original poster was not Rideau rose lad, but cziga.