That's a good question! I have Jude the obscure on my list for next spring so I'm looking forward to how this question is answered by other posters.

I'd pick Jude the Obscure because it has the stronger fragrance, wonderful scent. Blooms are much larger than BB and look good in the vase. I would say Jude is also more disease resistant than Buff Beauty, but both get blackspot without spraying. Both take a while to mature and will repeat pretty good once mature, but can seem stingy in early years.

I have both. I don't think you can really compare them.
Apples and oranges. Both gorgeous for different needs. Jude takes a l o n g time to establish here and is not vigorous (although I noticed Palatine is offering it on MF.)
Buff Beauty being a hybrid musk is going to be more open and spreading and arching, as you said. Jude is a bit more upright although he finally sprouted two long candelabra basals that flopped over but growth is more upright of traditional shrub habit for me.
How hardy is BB? Where are you in Z6?
Jude does okay in the vase. The fragrance alone makes it worth growing. Intoxicating. BB is not as strong but it is nice and light to my nose.
If I had to choose I'd grow both. Sorry! : )
Susan

We planted our Jude in 2011, and this year she's over 6' tall and is already pretty enjoyable. I expect she'll be at full potential next year, -so for us in zone 6 she was not too long to establish. The lemony scent is one of my favorites. Don't know anything about Buff.

Jude, hands down. The long establishment time is so worth it for that, as statedabove,"intoxicating" fragrance. I gave one away because he never thrived for me but he grew six feet his first season at his new address.

Jude is the first of my roses to fall apart in a vase. If left on the plant, the flowers look just like the catalogue photos, and are strongly and beautifully scented.

I received Buff Beauty as an own root plant in a 2.5 litre pot in May 2013, so it's now just over 12 months old. I planted it with all my other roses and they get sun all day from sunrise to sunset.

Let me tell you that in my Zone 9 equiv. it's an enormous plant - I have no idea what it will be like in another 12 months. No other rose of mine has grown at the rate of my Buff Beauty, although they do all seem to thrive here.

Here's a photo I took earlier today - last Summer I tried to get some 'order' into its growth habit by hammering 5 bamboo canes that are each over 2 metres long, into the ground around the base of the rose and then tying the stems to the canes - the three main canes are just on 3 metres in length and I have about half a dozen new basal shoots coming up that all look as if they will be giants, too. All I can say is Buff Beauty must like its spot - it's already crowding out my David Austin Lichfield Angel and an own-root Iceberg planted at the same time.

By the way, it was smothered in beautiful blooms throughout May and I've noticed that it's already covered with lots of buds again.

Good luck with whichever you choose if you can only have one.

Jude the Obscure is on my list of bare root roses for this Winter.

Cheers
Tricia

My Buff Beauty was also a small plant on its own roots when I acquired it. Those first two years I had to treat it for mildew, but ever since then, NO mildew, NO insects, NO blackspot. Again I think our cold British Columbian winters offer some protection for it.

I am loving all the information on both plants. It's good to know Buff Beauty can tolerate shade and still be a prolific bloomer. I was for sure sold on Jude but now am BB to my list as well for a spot in my yard where it will get morning sun until about noon and then shade the rest of the day

Knowing your priority on fragrance, Patrick, I'd have to go with Jude hands-down. Buff Beauty has a nice vague kind of fragrance, but nothing you'd seek out. If you were looking for a rose to handle tough situations with little care and great tolerance of shade and disease, then Buff Beauty would win without a question.

Cynthia

In it's second year in the ground, JtO has not put out more than two blooms this year at my parent's house. It put out three its first year. I have a very new band of Buff Beauty potted up that I'm taking care of till it's ready to go in the ground at their house. Patience is necessary with both to some degree, but Jude has been unlike any other rose here with regards to its stinginess. I can't say I would recommend it to others in this area, but -since it was one my mom really wanted to try- we're sitting it out to see if it will mature into something worth talking about. JtO was planted as a grafted, 5 gallon plant as well, not just a band or gallon own-root plant.

I'm very confident a neighbor of theirs has a Buff Beauty trained around their front door up a pillar and it puts on a show every spring with scattered repeat till its lovely fall show. Going from that plant, I would absolutely recommend BB to anyone interested in growing roses in my area.

Jay

I'll also add that here in So Cal, Jude has not bloomed anything close to the color on the tag, but rather a bleached out, off-white. The foliage is somewhat susceptible to disease as well. It's not a problem to the degree of an Abe Darby type, but it is rarely without some mildew or rust. The fragrance is as advertised though. Jude has a delicious scent.

Jay

This post was edited by ArbutusOmnedo on Mon, Jun 30, 14 at 16:28

I have an ownroot Jude that came from Heirloom Gardens that I planted 14 years ago. It never gets sprayed for disease and it never suffers from any diseases here in the Puget Sound area. The shape of a mature bush is rounded reaching six to seven feet tall and wide. It is also VERY dense with foliage and would shade out any smaller roses planted to the north of it.

How about: Jude the Obscure or Abraham Darby?

In 6B are you safe to use a fortuniana rootstock? That's what my Jude is on and it's growth during this first year has been quite good.

I only have BB--here is a picture of this beauty in full bloom last spring.

Buff Beauty
{{gwi:207537}}

Kate

I have Jude and think Buff Beauty is objectively more beautiful with prettier flowers and a what, to me, is a more graceful cascading habit that could be draped along a fence or trained along one side of an arch. Jude, on the other hand is inclined to be very tall, stiff, upright, and thorny with big, leathery hybrid-tea like leaves. Despite this, I have to say I like both very much, though. My Jude didn't bloom much for years but now is an ever-ready bunny even in 1/2 shade. I am planning to move it to the back of the garden. I am not planning to get BB because I already have Cornelia and don't have any more room along the fenceline.

Here is a link that might be useful: bb on help-me-find

Hello!

In my experience, Jude the Obscure was an exceptionally vigorous variety when grafted onto Dr. Huey- five feet of mostly winter hardy, arching canes that in retrospect (poor JtO left years ago due to moving) did quite remind me of the "octopus canes" as described from several So Cal areas, but not nearly as exaggerated of course! The foliage would develop a touch of black spot, but nothing to warrant concern. This year's scourge was PM, but not on Jude of course though. I've seen no BS on my few plants I have this year.
Jude's blooms were delightfully sized, modestly nodding blooms with deeply cupped petals of buff-beige with orangey-salmon depths. I never observed much true yellow in it. The colour reminds of the Tea-Noisettes I dare only fantasize of! The fragrance of the blooms is indeed memorable: rich, sweet; heavy citrus notes that were, to my teenage (more than ten years ago) nose heavily weighed to grapefruit with pear accents.
I wouldn't consider JtO to be stingy, but it certainly isn't going to give a lushly abundant flush. It's for those delightful, pastel shaded jewels with a scent too precious to be flippant with. I believe I do recall very prickly canes- not fun to reach into.
I've never dared to try Buff Beauty yet, but, Oh! I dream!

Steven

Fragrance - Jude. Mine was very stingy after the first couple of years. I've since left the garden plot and it's probably doing even worse with no one to care about it. I also suspect it had crown gall. Buff Beauty is vigorous to say the least. It's trained over an arch in my patio. Right now I have a large cane sitting on the patio umbrella with a huge cluster of blooms just finishing. Our spring bloom sends out fragrance all over. I love it even if it's too much for me to handle any more. Worth it!
Mary

In our heat of summer, Jude is very stingy with blooms. Leaves fry. Flowers small and fry in one day. Had mine over 10 years. Still stingy. Shovel pruning it this year. Don't recall a fragrance at all.

I don't know about your zone, but in hot humid South Mississippi, Buff Beauty is definitely an excellent choice. It is , in my opinion, one of the better hybrid musks: disease resistant, will take some shade, strong grower and bloomer, will climb some if you let it, reliable and fragrant. I haven't grown J. Obscure, but I am leery of Austins in this area, though I know they are popular and well promoted.

There are only a few of the Austins, in my experience, that do really well here year after year. Some have a tough time getting started, and others seem to take off with a bang but then succumb to disease or get gradually weaker over time compared to many of the OGRs.

Three of the better Austins for this area are Pilgrim, G. Jekyll, and G. Thomas. These are healthy strong growers. I originally thought Jekyll was just a gimmick, appearing nearly identical to its Comte de Chambord parent, but I have to admit that in my hands Jekyll is much the healthier. Apparently, in this instance, Austin has managed to produce a rose with bloom identical to C. d. C but with superior vigor and disease resistance -- a significant contribution. Like C.d.C, Jekyll is exceedingly fragrant!, has the same classical rose fragrance as C.d.C, and the same vicious thorns. Jekyll responds well to hard pruning. It seems to demand it in fact.. Many of the Other Austins, and I have grown quite a few, are just not that great in terms of longevity and disease resistance here. My opinion is that, in general, they are over rated for my area, with the exceptions I mentioned. There are so many, probably too many, Austin introductions that it is hard to keep up with them. So there are quite a few I haven't tried. There are likely one or two more decent ones in addition to those I mentioned.

I'm surprised 'Buff Beauty' has been acceptable in hot climate plantings, from what I have seen here (dullest part of the Lower 48) I would think the flowers would just burn up.

I like Jude, though it has its faults; it's a bit all over the map--sometimes the blooms last in a bouquet, and sometimes not; sometimes it has a summer of excellent blooming, sometimes not. Jude took a long time to establish, and for me, it's a large rose. In this photo, the fence is nine feet, and you can see it's above the fence. But it was cut back severely last year and is somewhat shorter. I don't think the leaves are shiny and modern looking on my Jude. I'm keeping Jude. Diane

Here's a photo I've posted before, but I think it illustrates that Jude has blooms that are quite feminine. Diane

I would keep jude just for the perfume. Long wait between the flowers but worth it. Move it around until you find a spot where the color and scent are best. Mine's in morning sun. If you want a rose to look at get buff beauty instead.

I just want to add, in case anyone got a mistaken impression, that the fragrance of Buff Beauty is delicious, and it carries on the air. It is a hybrid musk.

Graham Stuart Thomas describes the flowers this way: "They are borne singly or in small clusters at midsummer, but in long panicles as the strong new shoots are produced in late summer and autumn. They are large large [for a hybrid musk!], shapely, fully double, rich apricot yellow fading slightly, tinted coral in the bud, with a most delicious scent, leaning toward the Tea Rose quality. Red-brown young stems."

I planted one for my friends in Maryland and it is one of the most beloved plants in their garden.

See also the comments on Helpmefind

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Buff Beauty' rose Reviews & Comments (HMF)