I can't tell how far down it goes because there is still a couple of feet of snow on mine but almost everything sticking up is a dark color and will probably have to be pruned off. I'm hoping that the snow saved some below at least. I'm worried most about my beautiful enormous Golden Celebration. It's at least 10 feet tall on a trellis but it may end up only being a couple of feet tall by the time I prune it.

It's going to be a learning experience for me because I have never had a winter this brutal in all the time I've been growing roses. For the most part my worries have been the constant freeze and thaw. This prolonged sub zero is a new experience so I have no way of knowing what to expect. I do think I'm going to have a lot of very short roses by the end of pruning in April...IF it's warm enough by then!

I can't tell how far down it goes because there is still a couple of feet of snow on mine but almost everything sticking up is a dark color and will probably have to be pruned off. I'm hoping that the snow saved some below at least. I'm worried most about my beautiful enormous Golden Celebration. It's at least 10 feet tall on a trellis but it may end up only being a couple of feet tall by the time I prune it.

It's going to be a learning experience for me because I have never had a winter this brutal in all the time I've been growing roses. For the most part my worries have been the constant freeze and thaw. This prolonged sub zero is a new experience so I have no way of knowing what to expect. I do think I'm going to have a lot of very short roses by the end of pruning in April...IF it's warm enough by then!

Same here in chicagoberia. I was going to prune way down this spring anyway. Mine grow back quickly but I just hope they're ALIVE.

Buford, I am in upstate SC a couple hours north of Atlanta.
I am surprised at the amount of winter damage to my roses.

I had a grafted Blue Girl that totally died.

My own grown root roses are showing a lot of red/brown canes and die back. Roses that had numerous healthy canes are down to only one or two healthy canes.

The worst damage has been on my DA Happy Child, Ebb Tide,
Blue Girl, and Bucks Incredible.

Surprisingly my Mutabilis and chinas look good.

DA Evelyn and Christopher Marlowe look decent.

My Francois Rabelais and DA Queen of Sweden look untouched by the cold.

All of these are in the same garden.

I have many camellia bushes and have lost all the blooms for this year.

This is my first winter for my roses own root bands planted last spring. Hopefully since they are hardy OGRs and covered under snow all winter they will be fine. Can't believe the first year I start rose gardening we get the worst winter in years. How ironic!

If you have snow cover, you are probably fine. We don't have that, except for a few days last week. I have to dig up many roses this year because the county is going to replace the drainage pipe in my yard, so I guess if they don't come to life, I will just put them in the compost pile.

Sigh....

Haven't started pruning anything in the ground yet but everything I have in pots (mostly mini's and minifloras) started budding out early this week so I cleaned them up. Nothing dead and very little die back. In the HT section of the garden, I did loose a weak Moonstone. Everything else looks to be in good shape and at least 1/2 of my garden is budded onto fortuniana rootstock. I do winter protect with an 12" to 18" layer of oak leaf's. By the end of Feb., this protection is down to about 6". I'll pull all that off next week and let the soil start to warm up. If I have anything that is badly damaged, I'll start to see it by the end of next week. After a tough winter we'll see what happens.

I hear ya Buford! It's been really rough. My experience is similar to yours. Could you elaborate on the "ugly reddish cast that usually means canker"...? I have some canes that may fit that bill.The bright side is less digging for you and a chance to reevaluate...it's just losing the big ones that gets me down (not sure if that has happened yet).
Susan

I got to enjoy a nice, warm day to melt the foot of snow and try to evaluate my roses, too.

I have two own-root roses that will have to grow from the roots because all the canes are brown, dry and terrible looking. I hope they do 'resprout'! They are the ones I put off ordering from Vintage for years and finally got last season :( They are both climbers, so hopefully they have some natural vigor.

Then I have one grafted Austin that has all its canes lost except possibly for a big fat woody cane that just looks woody. I'm hoping that fat one can regrow something green, too. That one is replaceable at least!

I take it very cold temperatures for an extended time can make it look like the plants have never been watered, lol? My dead branches look quite shrivelled. I know we had enough moisture this winter, so it must be the cold (or cold winds?). I'm not used to winter damage, so it's freaky.

We only got to 4 or 5 F, but the wind chills were lower. Usually under 15 is pretty rare and doesn't last days.

meredith, sounds like my yard. I even have massive leaf loss on my Jasmine vine that had made it all the way up my deck (which is one story above the backyard). I am hoping it will come back, but I've never seen this happen before. Some of my gardenias look ok, but have some brown areas. My Cleara bushes leaves are almost black, I'm not sure if they will come back. I did see some new growth on some roses, even with the ugly looking canes, so maybe they will be ok.