It is a terrible picture, but not totally worthless, and it sounds like it is time for some visual aids. I have 3 oak trees in my backyard. There is another one directly behind the on in the picture, and a third one just off the right side. Underneath them is the species rose in the picture, the Viburnum plicatum 'Shasta' on the right side, mock orange on the left side, another Viburnum plicatum 'Summer Snowflake' beyond the mock orange, a forsythia past it, then coming back on the other side of the back oak a dwarf flowering quince, a Viburnum carlesii, and a bunch of daylilies. The other oak has a bunch of tree peonies, some hydrangeas, some ferns, hellebores and pachysandra. The point of this is that you are plant just about anything you want under an oak. The shrubs are planted at least six ft from the trunks, but that has more to do with the shrubs than the trees. The space between the shrubs and the trees is either mulched or planted with groundcover. Forget you ever heard about rototillers. Unless you are tending a large, conventional vegetable garden, I have yet to find a use for one. Shrubs are planted in holes, and not carefully spaced out. Murphy's Law is alive and well in gardening, and if you plan the planting holes out, you will hit major roots in almost all of those holes. It is much easier on the brain if you allow the holes to move a foot or two to get them between roots.

I have all 3 but Gabriel Oak and Eustacia Vye are both new bare roots. I think Marlorena would be in a better position to advise you since as far as i'm aware she has all three. I've only had Emily Bronte for 1 year but for what it's worth I recall the fragrance in it's first year being very nice! It's a strong sherbet like fragrance with strong grapefruit overtones. Reminds me of those love heart sweets. I have no idea how it will be when the scent stabilises in later years. Unfortunately (and DA don't seem to stress this enough) the perfectly coloured blooms ALL pale into an ugly pale brown/creamy colour that looks in every way, worse than how the blooms look at their best. DA are obsessed with this paling in their roses even if it seems to detract from their beauty.

Steven, you recently wrote about a rose road trip. I would encourage you to visit his June open house. It's a remarkable garden and such an opportunity to see what does well without coddling. He sells the majority of his roses then, as opposed to mail-order. It is difficult to grow roses in Z5 to as large specimens as other own root vendors, although he may custom graft to multiflora.. He did that last year when the late coldsnap hit in June and killed some plants. If you are interested drop an email and avoid the conversation if you're more comfortable with that. He's very responsive to email. The plants I've received are small, but considering he was the only source for them and they've all thrived and really grown well, I'm not so concerned. Even as small plants put in the ground in the Fall, they all survived the winter. Fingers crossed that 2020's rarities do the same. I hope to pick up this year's in June and grow them up myself.

Hi Caroline, I think I live quite near you. I look forward to reading your posts and experiences with David Austin roses since we are pretty much in the same zone. Like you, I hope I live long enough to see all my Austins grow and thrive since I am a latecomer with my addiction for them. I have a large rose garden that finally, just this year has begun to reward us for all our very hard work. I had a thriving crop of thistle that has taken us 12 years to overcome but we won the battle. We have very heavy clay soils and have been hauling trailer loads of horse manure compost in every few weeks to help. We see wonderful results. Maybe we can meet in person one day and share our love of roses.