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.

Linrose, I don't know from where you got your (blanket) info on Austins, but the many I've been growing so far are certainly neither divas nor stingy with their blooms nor any less healthy than most other modern roses. Most of them are certainly a lot healthier, more vigorous and floriferous than many HT's, making fantastic garden plants. On the three you asked about: Lady Emma is a continuous bloomer with superb citrus-fruity scent similar to Jude the Obscure's, but a bit sweeter and more complex, absolutely delicious. Well behaved and wide growing, and in our temperate English climate practically evergreen (or ever-bronze, given the lovely color of its foliage). Catches some BS without spray but does not defoliate, and just keeps blooming and blooming. Quite amazing. This rose is a must for its beauty, scent and performance. My Tea Clipper is entering its third season. Its repeat was not great in its first year, but improved noticeably in its second. The blooms are very beautiful when they first open, but they fade teribly fast, within a day or two, into a wishy-washy color, ending up a very light, washed-out yellow-beige with floppy petals. That has been disappointing. Scent is tea. The plant is enormously vigorous with few thorns and quite healthy, even in my no-spray garden. Teasing Georgia - exquisitly beautiful and very healthy with an overwhelming display of flowers in the spring and early summer. Repeat in its first year is not so good, but will improve very noticeably every year. Lovely sweet tea scent. A superb, classic rose. Some more Austins I can recommend for performance: William Shakespeare 2000 Molineux Golden Celebration Sharifa Asma Heritage Abe Darby Crocus Rose Fair Bianca Prospero Lady of Megginch Radio Times Pat Austin Claire Austin Christopher Marlowe Jubilee Celebration The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild Sophy's Rose (not much scent) The Dark Lady (BS susceptible but superb bloomer) The Prince (a smallish plant but a good bloomer) The Herbalist Portmeirion A Shropshire Lad Ann Boleyn (flowers blow fast though) Jude the Obscure is also a good, reliable bloomer (albeit not a bloom machine) with fantastic scent and good health. In my experience, Austins tend to perform better when grafted. DA in Tyler TX sells the biggets, best quality plants. Hope this helps, Andrea

I love this rose also. It looks like Jude the Obscure with a few less petals and more brightly colored. Its faded color is about what Jude starts out as. We are having record low rain and in this case it is not suffering from mildew at all. Lance

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.