Deanna, it would be nice if Mgleason or anyone can post a pic for you now. I havenÂt taken a pic of GriffÂs Red. Mine has done a major blooming; there are spent blooms but still a handful of buds yet to open, so I will try to take some photos this weekend. The mature bush size I saw was about 6X3. Mine started out as a twig and is now more than 2 years old at 3 ft and quite narrow at just over 1 ft. There is lot more top growths and it needs to put out more basals, and I hope it will after I just dumped some alfalfa on it. IÂm sure it will put more size by the end of the season. Mgleason, I heard that you have quite a collection of Bucks, so do tell us about them, perhaps in a new thread. I can always add some more. I put a link of the photos from HMF. The color I see in my garden is darker rich red than the ones shown on HMF when they first open, but the blooms will eventually fade to that color. Here is a link that might be useful: Griff's Red at HMF

When I saw this post I knew I had to go out and take some pictures so you could see what the rose looked like. Boy I would hate to wait for the new introductions...I want to try almost all of them to see what they look like and how they perform and not least smell the different fragrances. Yes I did post pictures of Claire Austin and Munstead Wood since I drove to Albrighton when I was in England/Wales in may and got a potted plant of each. Claire Austin are doing good, but sure did not like the cold rainy summer we have had this year (many flowers just rotted). It seems to be a vigorous rose, like Heritage but is more compact in growth habit. It has had good disease resistance and a strong sweet honey like rose fragrance: Munstead Wood looks almost like the Austin Rose Tradescant, but the flowers are not so dark. It is however a bit more vigorous and have a more upright growth habit. It has many buds right now but the flowers do not look so good since it has been raining almost 4-5 days every week. Disease resitance has been excellent. The fragrance is very nice .. similar to William Shakespeare 2000: I am going to get 3 more of each plant since I plant Austins in groups of 3 to form a really impressive bush. I posted some pictures of both Summer Song And Lady Emma Hamilton yesterday in the Antique roses gallery. Lady Emma Hamilton is a strange roses since the leaves and buds(sepals) are so dark!!! almost blackish green and brown: I was also surprised that it was not darker, I had expected a more warm apricot colour, but mine have the almost the same colour as Jude The Obcure, but are pale pink on the outer petals. Fragrance is similiar to Jude the Obscure, but it is not as strong: Hope that gave you a tasters test and something to look forward to when they become more available in USA/ Australia. I have planted Summer Song in a new border along with lady Emma Hamilton, Pat Austin, And golden Celebration. with various hot coloured perennials, bulbs and annuals.

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.

I still have this peculiar rose...but only because I have been too idle to remove it. It mooches about, still just with one long cane and a couple of spindly offshoots and occasionally throws out a really rather good bloom (with a weak neck), most surprisingly around November. I can see why it is seductive but after 4 years, to get only a tiny handful of roses in a season is just hopeless. I freely admit to being rubbish+ with food and water, but enough roses seem to manage perfectly well. I have to conclude that this is one of those fussy types.