The fragrance for Jude is just delicious - to me the fragrance is of the fruit lychee, and it sort of has a slight tangy or spicy kick to it - you just can't get enough of it. Unfortunately though I find the blooms do terribly as a cut flower, rarely lasting more than 2 or 3 days even if cut early. If you cut them too early, they may remain balled up and not fully open. But the after a day or two the petals drop at the slightest nudge. The color I find starts of a translucent lemony yellow that ages well to a more opaque and paler peach color. Reminds me very much of the aging of Carding Mill or Brother Cadfael blooms. The flowers can be quite heavy though and I find that my plant can have trouble supporting the blooms. Jude hates shade, but can't handle too much direct sun. Seems to repeat poorly (but that may due to my somewhat shadier position). Just ordered Lady Emma this season, I can't wait!

I haven't grown this one, but based on the other Austins I do grow, I'd be inclined for the spring pruning only to follow the general practice of trimming it back by about 1/3 (or even a bit less)--plus taking out any dead branches--feed and water it well, and let it take off and hopefully do its thing for the rest of the season. It is not that unusual for a first-year Austin to bloom very little--nor is it unusual for an Austin to grow about 4x3. I suspect it will do better its 2nd and 3rd year. I'm assuming it is getting plenty of sun--at least 6 hours. If it is in too much shade, that will certainly stop it from blooming very profusely. If it gets quite hot in your region, dont' forget to water it. Austin's sometimes need a bit extra water to bloom well. As for pegging, unless this Austin's starts developing outrageous jolly green giant arms (evidently that is a problem in places like California), I wouldn't bother with it. I tried it once with Gertrude--lot of work for very little result, in my opinion. I think maturity plus food and water (and sufficient sun) will do wonders this year--and we'd like to see photos of it blooming! : ) Kate

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

I have all of the Austin oranges - Pat Austin, Lady Emma Hamilton, Summer Song, Lady of Shalott, and also Carding Mill. My Pat Austin has shown rose rosette disease, but is responding favorably to aspirin treatments at the moment. I'm hoping for the best on this. It does bloom nicely, but the flowers do not take our summer heat. The bush gets quite tall. It does have a good color, but, again, the flowers fry easily. Lady Emma Hamilton does not get to be a tall bush. It is more spreading. It does not bloom in large amounts of flowers at any given time, but it has a fairly steady supply of nicely fragrant flowers. It is the most consistent performer of the oranges that I have. Summer Song was quite pretty in the spring. For summer all three bushes of it that I have didn't do much of anything. I noticed that a couple of them were munched on probably by deer. Something ate the leaves off of them as well as part of the stems, and I have seen deer in the yard at various points. The first year I had these plants they did reasonably well. This past summer, year two, they didn't care for the excessive heat and just sulked. They did, however, throw long canes. The orange color does fade badly in the heat. They did not bloom much at all in the fall either. I think it was more because of the weather. Lady of Shalott was pretty its first year. It seemed to be going along okay growing and flowering most of the way through the growing season. It pretty well stopped by the end of September, but it had a couple of flowers late. I think this bush will get fairly large. Flower size has been on the small size. Perhaps it will improve some next year. Carding Mill does reasonably well, but the flowers have been on the small side. It can get to be about 5-6 feet tall here. Its growth habit is fairly cylindrical and doesn't spread much. The apricot color bleaches out to a pink in the heat. Otherwise, overall it has been reasonably consistent here. I have no major complaints about this one. I hope this helps a bit.