I am a little reluctant to uncover the climbers and floribundas yet. Some are under huge mounds of straw; I was thinking of piling the straw to the west of the plants for windbreak. I don't like forsythia (heresy, I know), so I don't have any, and I have not seen any bloming elsewhere.

I have two climbers tipped under dirt and compost; how do you know when to unmound and stand up tipped roses?

I'm tidying up the rose beds, raking etc.

Krista, I think I will do as you are doing, beginning with the hardiest varieties, and ending with the most tender.

seil, You are a zone warmer than me. We had a zone 6 winter here, so yours must have been a 7? In a few years, if this keeps up, you might be adding noisettes and I will be planting Pernetianas!

I have been pruning, but I didn't cover anything so there is no uncovering. I think that's the case for mike_rivers as well.

Besides I've been informed by the city that they might have to dig up my yard to fix some pipe.

Thanks

Roses that are in growth can be temporarily protected from cold snaps, but if you leave the cover on for days, slugs may attack the new shoots.

I don't cover up any of my roses anymore so I have nothing to uncover. However, I have been digging up and transplanting those that need to be moved and it's a great time to get out there and do that. I am finding that there is no frost down in the ground - not even in the shady areas. (I wonder if the ground ever really froze this past winter??) Bud break is happening all over the yard from quince to lilacs to my hardy roses. Since they're all telling me it's spring, I'm just going to go about my spring chores, leaving the pruning for last, and when I get to it I will just do it. There doesn't seem to be any real benefit to waiting for the calendar, or the forsythia even (which I don't have) if the roses are awake and growing.

I've covered mine several times in the past with old sheets and have never had a problem with breaking off new growth. (No, I usually do that dumb thing myself while pruning!) And if you get row cloth meant for frost covering it's even lighter weight and shouldn't be any problem at all. You just have to be gentle removing it and don't yank on it if it gets caught on a thorn.

It's been in the 80's nearly every day for over a week and night time temps were making me nervous about needing to spray ALREADY....everything was fully leafed out and growing like mad. I thought it would totally ridiculous to delay pruning yet start spraying so that blackspot didn't get a foothold before haircut time.

I am very, very grateful at this point that I limited my spring order for new roses. I filled 2 lawn bags with prunings and I only made it through half of the bushes yesterday.

I also moved some potted Portland roses outside, to the east side of the house where they will get morning sun. Portlands are hardy to zone 5 and perhaps colder, but they don't seem to want to grow very fast.

There were a ton of weeds growing under the wet, matted leaves. They were all green! How do they get light down there to turn green? The new growth on the roses below the leaf level was all white in comparison!