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.

Lota, I have been salivating over Gabriel Oaks and Eustacia Vye for a while now. And have been checking David Austin site every day lately, even this morning! I am so happy I have seen your post!!! Just ordered three of each, lol. Complete newbie here but determined to create my little rose garden.

I thought DA put the code in the new catalog that comes out at different times depending on your zone. So customers in warm zones get their catalogs much earlier than I would in z5a because they ship there much earlier. I thought last year I received the catalog in December, but I haven't seen anything as of yet. I am hoping someone in the warm zones will post the code. Thank you.

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.