Silver Shadows
Prairie Star
Sally Holmes
Ophelia

as for what they are getting into:

They are going to be good sized, coming from Greenmantle, so will go directly into the garden in April, unless they have to be heeled into the raised veggie beds until the rose garden spots are ready.
I do minimal winter protection (a pile of leaves held in place with hemlock branches on the smallest/newest roses).
I fertilize with the organic sea stuff from Maine and work in my own compost (aged chicken coop bedding plus kitchen, garden waste) top dressing every spring, another shot of the sea stuff mid summer.
I try to stay on top of the aphids by hand, but last year gave up with the tiny things under the leaves (sawfly larvae?)that nearly defoliated a bush in a weekend, so hit them with Safer's to mostly minimal effect(bushes both recovered and bloomed late). So far my chickens seem to have held the JB's down, so I don't do any other pest control. (Although Polareis was devastated by borers last year, and I had to prune it back by 2/3 to get below the knobbies).

for comparison's sake: I have had success with Therese Bugnet, Polareis (except for the borer thing), Alba SemiPlena, Cinderella, Hansa, Mme Legras de St Germain, Reine des Violettes, Quietness, Linda Campbell, La Belle Sultan, Allegra...

Given this rather lackadaisacal approach - what do you think of these four?

Thanks, Antonia

Sally Holmes might be OK from Pickering. My experience with it as a rooted cutting was that it died quite quickly.

Ophelia is an absolute, positive, no go.

While walking in the nearby rose park with over 1,000 bushes in early spring - Austin roses like Abraham Darby were blooming, while non-shrub roses like hybrid tea and grandiflora were tiny and just leafing out. Shrubs are hardier than HT and Grandiflora.

As for aphids, I have a cottage style garden, with roses mixed in with perennials/annuals and other shrubs, so I leave a few beneficial weeds in the back of the garden, to bring the ladybugs in...and no more aphids. They're here one, maybe two days...and then gone! I also have lots of daisies, coneflowers, Hidcote lavender and salvias (to keep the deer out)...and alyssum seems to help too, since it brings in other 'good' bugs that eat aphids :)

Survival is not a certainty with tender Hybrid Teas such as these, but one can take steps to help them get established.

In my organic garden I use no sprays, and give plenty of organic fertilizers with alfalfa, also I use a soil drench with a fish/ seaweed. (Sounds like you do similar things...)

I mulch heavily in winter, and wrap these Hybrid Teas in burlap.

I grow Ophelia as a bedding rose, and I think its best to plant it away from shrub roses where it might have to compete. Allow Ophelia room, don't crowd it too close to other Hybrid Teas.

It's best to plant in all day sun, no shade at all.

Chicago Peace is gorgeous. Midas Touch is hardy. Bewitched HT is hardy to zone 4b (no need for winter protection). Many of the floribundas are hardy: Carefree series, Singing-in-the-rain (very disease resistant, RRR, and low in thorns), Julia Child, Gene Boerger (?).

Austin roses are impressive, the diameter of these shrubs are much bigger than hybrid teas. What I like about shrubs is that they are much taller than HTs' in the spring, and I don't have to crawl to sniff them.

I've also used Monty's Joy Juice, which is a liquid humus concentrate.