I'm waiting for a count after this next (tomorrow) rain. Youall in Atlanta have had a lot more rain that we have and I'd expect your roses that have survived to react to that rain.

I wonder if one of the problems with your HTs was that they had enough RMV in them that it was just the tipping point. I do remember losing a yellow HT before winter came one year, and I didn't miss the yellow streaked leaves at all, but the timing surprised me.

Everything is slower to show this year. We were up in NE Tn several days ago and they are even slower to show spring.

We just aren't used to spring corresponding to the spring equinox.

We still have a few weeks till pruning time here in Louisville,KY. I know I have lost many roses. I see their black canes and I could just cry. I could never replace them all this year. I know I`m not alone. They will be lots of casualties of this Polar Vortex. I`m pretty sad about this. Lesley

It will be a while before I get the body count, but I have to say I am anxious this year. I'm trying to look on the bright side and tell myself that if I lose some, it just means that I can buy more :) How sad that you lost your Moondance. I was looking at mine today and was happy to see that the canes are mostly green. I often read comments that It's not especially hardy so guess I'm lucky (and it's planted in a very sunny and protected spot). It would break my heart to lose my Moondance.

What worries me more than what I might have lost is whether the snow will be gone by the time my bareroots arrive. I have a 6' snow bank at the end of my driveway, and I still can't get across the yard without snow shoes.

We lost a good chunk of our snow cover the last couple of days but the temps are going to drop off again tomorrow and into next week. It's still too early to do anything out there for me. Besides the cold the ground is sopping wet and unworkable. His Nibs yells at me every time I step on the lawn, lol. Maybe in a few weeks, I hope. Of course that doesn't take into account that Mother Nature may dump on us again!

Buford, unless you had to take all of those down to below the grafts I would give it some more time before you count them out. They may surprise you and send up some new canes when the weather warms up. I've had that happen more than once on mine. Leave them be for a bit and hope for the best. Particularly if there's one you really love or something hard to find and you don't want to lose it. They are survivors and surprise me all the time.

ratdog, Luckily I have 3 Moondances. What is strange is that the own root one died, but the two grafts are ok.

I think part of my problem was that I had a lot of new growth in the fall, just due to the weird summer we had. It was mid October and my roses were full of buds. Then we had a very early hard frost and I not only lost all the buds, but there was damage down the canes. On some of them I did prune that back, maybe I shouldn't have.

Also, most of the victims were in this spot that gets a lot of sun, but had no real winter protection. And with temps that got down to -1 (which is below zone 7 cold hardiness), it really did a number on some of them. I also lost my rosemary, which I've had for over 10 years.

Quite a few of mine were in pretty rough shape
Didn't make it: Double Delight
Only 1 or 2 canes: Midas Touch, Oklahoma, New Zealand
Bad Canker: Golden Celebration and honey perfume

I was really sad about double delight because I loved its color and smell, but I don't think I have enough patience to deal with hybrid teas in my climate. I am going to try kordes roses this year.

I would give them more time. You never know what is lurking below! Many times I have cut to the ground and found little green nubs within a few weeks. I shudder to think how many I may have lost. Not only roses.

Buford, I am very sorry your roses have taken such a hit, but listen to seil, and wait. Good things may still happen to at least some of those roses. I am a bit optimistic because -1 isn't that bad if it lasts a short time. We have had a mild winter, but in late November-early December, before real winter started, we had the dread arctic vortex in the Northwest. It hit -1 or-2 for a couple of nights. Nothing was dormant. What a hit. That darn rosemary of mine was the only fatality--but then rosemary dies here every winter, anyway. I don't know how you kept yours growing for so many years. Anyway, I hope things start looking better for you in a few weeks. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and others who have roses that are not looking so good. Diane

Yeah, I remember in my old house that I always had roses that barely, barely made it or didn't at all. Now that I have my roses in pots in the garage, it's so freeing. No more worries.
So, yeah, I remember how it feels - looking at all of the black canes, cutting back to find pith, but there isn't any.
Carol

I'm sorry that it looks like you took a hit there from the winter, but having Mister Lincoln and Fragrant Cloud on the list do not surprise me. I have had problems with them in the past. They do not winter well.

I am nervous about our situation here. We have gotten plenty of cold, but not much water either as liquid or as snow cover. We are still in a drought situation here although there has been rain to the north and south of us. If it got too cold too deep, then there might be dead roots. The next month here is a critical time for roses and other plants because of the wild fluctuations in early spring temperatures. That is what causes major damage and deaths. We had a bad Easter freeze in 2007 and again a late freeze and snowstorm in May 2013. I lost plants both times, and many did not rebloom much or at all. All we can hope for is that they are not totally dead and make a comeback.

I won't be able to dig any of these up for at least a week, so I am giving them time. Most of my other roses have some new growth on them. The ones that are dead have blackish or dark red or yellow canes with no growth and brown pith. Even some of the ones I haven't named I had to cut way down and hopefully they will rebound. The weather is starting to warm up finally (well except we will have cooler weather this week.) the forsythia just bloomed, here it usually blooms in February. Just a weird winter after an equally weird summer.

I am sorry you have lost so many! have 3 so far that are gone. Christian Dior was the first to go, followed by 2 Chrysler Imperials (i am pretty sure). I am definitely planting deeper this time around. I just replaced Christian Dior yesterday and my fingers crossed they will have enough time to settle in this year

Let me join the others in urging gardeners not to get too eager and jump the gun. Bad as this winter was, I can honestly say I have never lost a rose to winter cold--but I have lost a couple due to excessive late summer heat.

Admittedly, hybrid teas have a hard time surviving winter freeze-thaw cycles, but they will mostly survive in Zone s 6 and 7 --you may have to wait a bit longer for warmer weather to get them jump started and you may need to prune them pack almost to soil line (I bury my graft 1-2 inches), but those grafts have tons of potential buds buried in them and there's nothing like a near-life-death experience to get that grafted rose pushing out those potential canes and producing for you a completely "new" healthy plant. It just might happen a few weeks later than you are used to waiting.

So, have faith--roses are survivors, as Seil noted!

By the way, just a note for the curious, Austin's Lady of Shalott is green and healthy, no winter damage at all that I can see. Northern gardeners might want to check out this one--seems exceptionally cold hardy.

Kate

Waiting here. Most of the hybrid teas that I grow look really devasted; but that's why I don't grow very many here. The rest of the established roses look fine but some of the babies better have some tough roots.

I know Jack Frost and Sonia are gone, possible Garden Party. On the wait and see list, Chicago Peace, Nicole, Granada, and Tiffany. The one I can't believe that has green canes is Blue Girl. I'm really zone pushing with her and thing is as green as can be. Go figure.

I lost a week Moonstone for sure. Royal Highness took a beating. Had to cut it down to 8". I hope it comes back. I really don't want to loose it. I have lost at least one cane off of each bush. Half way through my pruning I started to pay attention to what was going on. Every cane I had staked and tied, died. Every place where it was tied is where the cane started dying. I used shoe laces for my ties. I bet I won't let anything stay tied next winter. Perfect example; I have 2 Crystalline's right next to each other. Each had 5 big healthy canes. One bush had 4 canes tied up, the other 1 cane. You guessed it. I now have one Crystalline with 4 big healthy canes and one with 1 cane. Luckily the 1 cane wonder has 3 new basil breaks coming, so by mid summer it shouldn't look out of place in the garden. By the way, I have 29 roses grafted onto fortuniana root stock and didn't loose anything to rootstock failure. The Moonstone was on Dr Huey. I live about 40 miles north of Buford, so yes it got cold up here this winter (think about 5 degrees colder). I do a little winter protection. 12/18" of Oak leaf's. Buford---- My Peace, Chicago Peace and Comp de Chambord came through with little to no damage. Figure that one out.

Hi Ken, I think my issue is that I didn't bury my grafts. And I had some damage from that October hard freeze when I had lots of new growth. If I can get roses on Fortuniana or own root I will. But I think just burying the graft (which I want to do anyway to see if they will go own root) and in some spots I will need to do some winter protection. Some of my roses tend to get leaves built around them or I have mondo grass around them that protected them. The ones that died didn't, for the most part. And some of these roses were not in great shape before the winter. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it.

Another voice in the "give it time" chorus. I've had plants of many kinds surprise & delight by rising from the ashes a year & more later, including roses. No doubt this Winter has been a shocker for many friends in our gardens. Even some broadleaf evergreens have lost their leaves here for the first time in many years.

After another day in the 70's, rain turned to snow last night & it's still falling at suppertime today, at least 8" piled up so far, heavy & wet. Grateful I resisted the urge to cut away the old dead leaves on the hellebores as they began to bloom in the brief warm spell, or snap off the roses' dried hips. Usually well into Spring garden mode, intuition tells me to sit back & wait this year...

I'm seeing a lot of bushes (not roses) around town with all brown leaves, when they are usually evergreen. I know one year, one of my hollies up and died and it was from winter kill.

I figure that if any of the 20 or so bands I bought last spring survive I'll consider myself lucky. So far the only life I see are wee bits of green leaves coming from the base of both my Annie Laurie McDowells. Seeing they would probably be the hardest to replace that's good news. Unfortunately I suspect we've got another month of freeze and thaw so they aren't through the woods yet.

The rest of the baby teas and chinas...not so much. Not just brown canes, but dead black canes and no signs yet at the base. I won't pull them for a couple months since I don't have anything to replace them yet, but considering they weren't very established--being moved from pot to ground in September--I'm not optimistic.

I'll wait a few more weeks to make "dead," "might as well be dead" and "survived" lists. Either way I think just about everything will end up needing to be pruned to the ground.

My hollies and magnolias have taken a hit too.

Two of my gardenias have branches that look like they were burned (I guess they were, by the cold), but look like they will survive. However, my lantana is still alive. Go Figure.

Two Heaven Scent gardenias (Gardenia augusta 'MADGA 1') in big heavy-duty double-insulated pots have dropped most of their usually glossy green leaves & those still hanging on have that tanned freeze-burn. Been trialling them 3 years now to replace a very long hedge of red barberry/berberis here when we moved in. If I wanted a hedge of thorny stems that lose their leaves in Winter, I would have planted roses! The gardenias are rated to zone 6 or -10. In those pots, they theoretically should have made it through our one-night low of 1. Glad at this point I don't have an extensive row of them planted. They may bounce back & grow new leaves - branches still look good - we'll see. May be back to the drawing board on that one. There may be a rose hedge in my future after all, rated hardy to at least zone 5!

90% sure that Tarde Gris is history. Hoping that Sengodea and Tawny Tiger pulled through. Can't find any trace of Erin Alonzo, that would be very sad indeed. Princess of Wales is not looking good, but it usually pulls through. Conundrum, Miami Moon, and one Soroptimist International were done in by weed whacking. MM might make it, I see green, but the other two don't show any proof of life. :-(

Hey Buford,
IâÂÂm here in North Alabama (between Huntsville and Birmingham)â¦grew up here and then transferred back years ago from Alpharetta, GA. Our weather and soil conditions are almost identical to yours. So sorry to hear of your losses, but hopeful that you might see a rebound from some in the coming weeks. IâÂÂve never buried my grafts, but guess I will start doing so going forward. I do put several inches of pine straw or leaves down, though. All my HTs and FBs seem to have survived this winter without much harm. My new teas and chinas are another story, though. They took a huge hit, but most have at least a few inches of green cane left. Completely dead to soil level were Duchesse de Brabant, Ducher, a mystery red china, and surprisingly, the bourbon Kronprinzessin Viktoria. DdB and KPV already have a tiny bit of new growth pushing out around the soil, but nothing green from Ducher yet. My other baby bourbons, HMs, HPs, polys, etc are looking pretty good. I have lost at least one old rosemaryâ¦the others might not be completely dead, but IâÂÂm not sure yet. My mature tea olives lost all their leaves except for the bottom 1/3 of the bushes (IâÂÂve grown tea olives for around 20 years both here and in Alpharetta and had no clue they were tender in our zoneâ¦IâÂÂve previously never seen any leaf loss or winter damage on any that IâÂÂve grown). My 4 year old soft caress mahonias appear to be completely dead (another I didnâÂÂt realize was tender in our zone). I have several well established bushes of 5 different gardenia varieties and all have been hit very hardâ¦some have no green leaves left, but all seem to have some canes still living. I knew gardenias were iffy, but have grown them successfully here and in GA for many years. As long as the canes remain alive, they normally recover and bloom. IâÂÂve never had one bloom again if it had to come completely back from its roots, though. Will see in the next couple of months which of my zone pushing perennials wonâÂÂt be making a reappearance. IâÂÂm really going to miss my calla lilies if they donâÂÂt resurface.

Hi Pat, yeah it's not just roses. I have a great jasmine vine that grew all the way up and around my deck. This is the first year it had dieback. All the leaves turned brown. It did need some cutting back, but I had to cut off all the leaves. I think it is still alive.

Some of the own roots look like the base is still alive. The wood looks good. So I'm still hoping they will come back. I'm sorry about your gardenias and other plants. Like I said, lesson learned.

In northeast Ohio, I often had to wait until the end of June to see life in what appeared to be a dead rose. ( I assume that all of my roses were own root as even with purchased grafted roses, I planted with the bud line very deep.)

This post was edited by henry_kuska on Wed, Mar 19, 14 at 15:18

I just transplanted a Mr Lincoln own root from the front of house into our backyard. ML hasn't done well so ML lost his out front spot...lol
Anyhow the canes were are all black on ML so we will have to see if ML comes back in his new location...

It's still cold here and it looks like it may remain that way for the rest of March. So I don't expect to see any life until April sometime on anything here..

Yes, wait and see is definitely the right policy here. With two caveats: If the rose does regrow, it may be so weakened that it will just struggle to survive, and if the rose is grafted onto coarser root stock, those green sprouts you see may very well be the root stock taking over the plant.

In either case, replacing the plant is probably the best solution. Life is too short to spend several seasons nursing an ailing plant back to health. But the basic rule is: Do not be in too much of a hurry to pass judgment. (Even more so with perennials.)

Yes, wait and see is definitely the right policy here. With two caveats: If the rose does regrow, it may be so weakened that it will just struggle to survive, and if the rose is grafted onto coarser root stock, those green sprouts you see may very well be the root stock taking over the plant.

In either case, replacing the plant is probably the best solution. Life is too short to spend several seasons nursing an ailing plant back to health. But the basic rule is: Do not be in too much of a hurry to pass judgment. (Even more so with perennials.)

litch, yes, I will wait. However, I'm in a much warmer zone and most of my other roses have leafed out already.

And I agree with you on not keeping a damaged plant, especially the ones who are easy to replace. I did that after the Easter Freeze of 2007 and wound up losing them one or two years later anyway.

We haven't even hit daffodil season here yet, so my roses are still largely sleeping--though yesterday I saw little red nubs forming on some of the most cold hardy bushes--exciting!

I raked up some leaves in areas where they had really piled up--that much "protection" definitely is not needed even if we go through freeze-thaw cycles. I was curious to see which roses had green canes or not.

A number of the stalwarts I've had for some time, plus my almost new Lady of Shalott and the HT Berolina have lots of green canes (and quite a few black ones on a couple also--no problem--that's what spring pruning is for!).

I was surprised, however, to find only an inch or two of green canes buried under the leaves protecting the Bourbon Mystic Beauty, but they looked healthy. I thought Bourbons were a bit more cold hardy than that. Guess I will have a smaller Mystic Beauty this year.

I was also surprised that my mini Sweet Diana (7 of them) that I've grown for years now also had only an inch or two of green cane near the soil line. They've never been a problem before.

Most of the HTs look fine. As usual, they will have to be pruned back to about 6-12 inches high--but poor Double Delight looks like it took a hit--hope there is something down there that is healthy, but most of the bush looks awful.

I will have to check the others today. I'm a bit nervous about the bigger shrubs out in the far-back garden. From a distance they don't look that good. Hopefully up close they will be more promising.

I'm not jumping to any conclusions here yet. Like Henry, I've had really pathetic winter-damaged roses start growing about a month later than the others--so I don't give up hope until the last possible moment.

It was a rough winter, wasn't it!

Kate

This has been a terrible year for us. We have had so much cold weather, yet no rain to speak of. My roses look bad.

SDLM in the front are ok even though I cut them way back. Others in the front will make it, but in the back, too many have black canes or dead brown canes.

Almost all roses are cut way back. That is ok, but I need to see the damage soon so that I can order replacements.

Pruning takes forever because we bag the clippings to send off in the trash. Cutting back the rose is only part of the work. Cutting the clippings also takes time.

I am sorry for your having lost so many, and it looks like I have done so as well.

Sammy

I'm sorry to hear that so many people have lost roses. But to look at it from a bright side, maybe we can prevent this happening with new roses. After all the promise of new roses is always exciting for a gardener :-)

We guys up North, have a yearly visit from the polar vortex, sometimes twice! So, when we plant tender roses (Hybrid Teas) we plant the bud union 2-6 inches below the soil level. Of course there is a lot digging involved and you have to prepare the soil accordingly and then you need to fertilize more, but on the upside I haven't lost a single hybrid tea with this method. Granted we have loads of snow as protection.
Maybe for the new roses, you could adapt our method by planting the bud unions 1-2 inches below the soil level.
With global warming, crazy weather seems more the norm. So, maybe this helps....

Some roses looked better a month ago than they do now.

Two things that I'm doing that might help. One is to expose the soils (and roots) to sunlight/warmth to try to get their attention. This is getting some new growth coming from roots.
Two is (today) going to be putting some 'special elixer' on all the ones that are barely making it.
This will be followed by two days of rain.

I'm growing to hate the USDA zones because they are a function of what numbers are chosen to be averaged. Lowest temperature matters a lot more than averaged low! And from this year, extent of freezes (four of 'em more than four days without temps above 25F) seem to have done damage that lower temps for shorter periods of time never did on the same roses.

Hi Ann, I hear that! We had some below freezing nights and some of the ones that had started to leaf out got zapped. SIGH.

I've also done the exposing of the soil and roots on the more worrisome ones. And we finally have nice sun today. I did see perhaps a little red spot on Mr. Lincoln's graft, or it might be rootstock, not sure, but I'll wait it out.

Sammy, the clean up is the worst part. If you are like me, I tend to work until I'm exhausted and always forget to leave enough energy to clean up (which for me means to haul all the cuttings to the back yard...). I am lucky that I have room to store all this stuff and either chip or burn or compost. But it's getting a bit ridiculous in the back yard. I'll do some burning this weekend.

Last weekend I joined the Greater Atlanta Rose Society in their annual pruning of the Fernbank Museum's Rose Garden. it was lots of fun. The best part was we didn't have to clean up! they had the ground crew come around and take all the cuttings. I wish I had that at home.

Ann, care to share what your "special elixer" is? Also if I pull aside the 2-3" of mulch/compost layer I put on last fall should I push it back for the cold nights (low to mid 20s) were suppose to get next week?

This year's elixir is "Nature's NOG" from over in Clemson SC. It was recommended by friends in Asheville NC who had major vole problems with their roses' roots and NN did well for the roots on a variety of roses from different classes.

If I didn't have it, I'd go with Monte's Joy Juice or Fish Emulsion.

I think this (wretched) spring is too odd to go with a strong N dosage, and it's been too cold for any organics (like my standby Cottonseed Meal) to begin to break down. I can tell you that the soil is still well colder than 70F.

I've pulled back compost, and I'm putting pulled weeds around the new basals. I'm also trying to be really careful to protect the new basals with stick stockades.

What bothers me the most is that this is the third week of March. There are only five weeks before May, and too often we've had two weeks of temps of 90s in early May (this is a Tennessee thing, elsewhere in the US, your mileage will vary) and those wretched 90s slow down rose growth.

As of this evening two TV stations are saying 22F and possible snow next Tuesday and one is predicting a balmy 27. I guess we hope for snow as an insulating blanket.

Grief, after losing 1 rose, I have already had a little angry weep in the greenhouse (although a clematis and paeony were also victims of builders steel boots and careless scaffold erection). The rose, a 12 year old R.primula) was gruesomely destroyed by my neighbours dog, tangling its lead and dragging and snapping the whole thing (we are not on speaking terms at present)....so I am feeling slightly ashamed after making such a fuss when some of you have lost plenty (and still remaining sanguine too, unlike my teeth-gnashing fury).

I felt that way camp, when the yard guy carelessly dragged a hose through my brand new (at the time) tea rose bed and killed a baby Mrs. BR Cant. I had to replace it and learned my lesson and put one of those little wire fences around it until it became a monster.

I'm sorry for your plant loss due to an uncontrolled dog, Camp. It's one thing to loose plants to something beyond one's control like weather, and another thing altogether when an inconsiderate neighbor allows her dog to run around destroying others' property. That's totally preventable with just a little common courtesy on your neighbor's part. So frustrating. Diane

I would much rather she allowed the dog to run around. I love dogs and have no problem with a bit of romping in the flowers...but she persists in bringing the dog to the allotment then tying it up (on one of those long leads) while she works somewhere else on the plot - so far, 2 redcurrants, my Wolley Dod rose, many blackberry canes and several salvia have all been mangled along the same 30feet stretch of path. I plan to lurk with camera!

Well, no pruning yet as the roses are still mostly encased in ice and the forsythia has only tiny buds, but the canes rising above the snow don't actually look that bad. No black, lots of red/brown, and even some green lower down on most of them. There will be serious reductions in height, but I can live with that. I put two in the ground in early December (Hortico couldn't get them to me before that) and I'm wondering how they will fare. About Face and Hot Cocoa - nice-looking bare roots. I buried both rather deep and mounded right over the tops, then covered with leaves for the winter. I'm hopeful!

Well, I'll get to find out this year if fat, woody canes above a graft can produce new green stuff, because I have 4 grafted roses that have zero green. I did cover them with leaves (heavily), but that didn't cut it. This year we had bitter cold for us but only a spell or two of snow that came late. Over a foot! I wish it'd come sooner :(

The ones that really worry me are the more unusual (or pretty rare) ownroots. But since they do have roots, they'll all sprout up again, right? Oh, they'd better! Those were still young from Vintage or RU, but they all looked great and big and thick enough going into winter. I protected those better and they still lost everything up top.

None of my really established roses had a bit of problem, even the teas. It was the grafts (I don't bury) or the smaller ones that really took a beating.

This year I'm taking insurance cuttings and rooting all my favorites, just in case!

Oh, yeah, my main water pipe froze solid underground for nearly a week this winter, too. No bursting, though :) May that luck hold out, lol.

Meredith, if you can, try to expose the grafts to as much sun as you can. That can spur them to put out new canes. I have two sprouts coming out of my Mr. Lincoln graft, and all of the existing canes were dead to the graft. Of course, we are having a freeze tonight, so I will have to run around and put leaves or something to protect those nice new sprouds on Mr. Lincoln and a few others. Will it ever end!!!!

It looks like one of the Chrysler Imperials pulled through. The other seems to be hopeless. Lesson learned, bury the graft. Christian Dior was way too above the ground, at least the replaced one is buried quite well. :)

Of the 15 roses I bought as bands last year all are completely dead to the ground, and only Annie Laurie McDowell, Mrs. BRCant, Crepescule and Souv. St Anne are showing any signs of life coming from the roots. I've got them covered with pots for the evening and hoping I can keep them alive through tonight's temperatures that are suppose to be in the low 20s.

Between losing so many plants (the two boxwoods are going to cost an arm and a leg to replace, never mind the roses!) and having to deal with livestock (horses and cows) through the bitter cold, I have had it with this winter. I want it done with!

So sorry about that sub. But if they are own root, they may come back. We also had a hard frost last night. I brought in what I could, and tried to cover the ones that has very tender new growth with leaves and mondo grass clippings I had. I checked a few this morning and they looked ok. But I'm with you, this winter has to END now!

We even got chilly in St. Pete Fl this morning. Well, chilly for us at this time of year! I Hope you do not have as many causalities as you think.
Regards,
Andrew