This would be a good time to prune in your area. You need to remove the black canes and any cane sections that show brown center pith when cut. If the graft (bud union) is not damaged, the plants will grow back and bloom about six weeks after pruning.

Black canes would be winter damaged or infected by botrytis canker fungus, or both.

Typical modern roses often suffer heavy cane damage when temperatures fall to around 5 degrees or lower. The grafts need to be protected by setting them slightly below grade or covering them during the coldest part of winter. If they are exposed, they may have been killed and only the rootstock variety will grow back. The graft is a swelling from which the basal canes diverge.

Rick, where are you getting that temperature information? What I was finding, was a monthly historical table which said that the lowest reading this winter for Newark was 11F, in January. Since here, it was a fairly mild winter, with few readings below zero, this is more in line with what I would expect.

Basically, my first inclination is that something is very wrong with the existing roses. The chances of cold enough temperatures to cause straight out winterkill aren't that great. Eastern weather patterns tend to be very large, and I'd be surprised if somebody that close to me had drastically different low readings.

If it wasn't cold enough over winter to kill canes, did you prune the roses in fall? Pruning in November or December can expose the dormant plants to attack by botrytis fungus. I ran into a lot of this when I (never again) topped my roses in November.

Or if soil drainage is really terrible, standing water could kill the roots.

Mad Gallica,

I got the minimum temps from the historic weather graff on Weather Underground for Newark, New Jersey for January and February 2013. I've put in the link to the page. See the temperature graph down the page and note the temperatures on the st, 2nd, 7th, 17th & 18th, or look at the calendar at the bottom of the page.

Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: Weather Underground History, Feb. 2012 Newark

Thanks for your help.
I live in Hackettstown, NJ which is in the NW corner and zone 6a.
I planted all these bare roots last spring and planted them 2-4" below ground.
Here are the roses I planted:
Sugar Moon
Koko Loko-Bought potted
Dolly Parton
Broadway
Tropicana-Bought potted
Mister Lincoln-Bought potted
Firefighter
Pink Promise
Freedom
Tiffany
Dick Clark
Secret
Elina
Double Delight
Neptune-Bought potted
Kordes Perfecta
Chrysler Imperial-Bought potted

They are in 18" raised beds and probably were fed too much for first year bare roots.

I guess I should cut them all down to the ground and see what happens.

Would you give them any fertilizer at this point?

Oh, no, the green line is the dew point. The red line is the observed temperature. So if you look at the calendar at the bottom, observed temperature for Feb 2 is a high of 31 and a low of 18. Feb 7 is 34/24. Overall minimum for Feb was 15, which occurred on the 10th.

Thanks for the clarification MG. Guess I didn't read carefully enough, though on my computer; probably because I'm accessing the site from Canada; the calendar is showing the temperatures in degrees Celcius which I mistook for Farenheight and which is still confusing me. Sorry for the mistake.

dmoore,

The roses you list are all Hybrid Teas with which I am not very familiar. Many Hybrid Teas are not very cold tolerant, I looked on the Canadian Rose Society website for a list of roses recommended for zones 5 and 6. Of the roses you list above, Elina and Double Delight are recommended, though with some winter protection.

You said that you think you may have overfed them in their first year, that is useful information. Your first year roses, especially if heavily fed, probably put out a lot of new growth. New canes are very susceptable to winter kill. I would suggest that since you did bury them more than 2 inches deep that it is quite likely that there are live cane ends below the soil. To check, carefully dig some soil away around the base of the roses until you can see the graft. If there is sound growth below the soil, your roses should come back just fine. If they are alive, cover them back to their original depth and leave them.

I personally would not do anything to them until you see new growth. I would expect you will see new growth emerging from below the soil line by late April or early May if they are alive. If they were my roses, I would cut the dead canes back to the surface or slightly lower. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with Hybrid Teas will chime in and give you better advice on pruning, fertilizing, etc.

If based on examination, they didn't survive, then I guess you can go rose shopping. Again, I would suggest that you consult with a local rose society for advice about what varieties do well in your area and how to plant them.

Good luck with your roses, let us know if you find live canes below the surface.

Cheers, Rick

Sounds like canker, I have lots of it. My roses get this on and off. Cut down and spray a fungicide of your chemical tolerance. Sometimes my garden looks like oily black sticks, but they recover unless it has gone down to the root ball.

Yes it could be canker as well. I often get canker on canes that are covered with mulch to protect the lower canes and bud union. Canker most often attacks stressed plants, so if the roses were badly cold stressed, then canker is likely as well. I include canker in the term "winter kill" when I use the term, because it is pretty much endemic in tender winter stressed roses, especially where there are freeze thaw cycles in winter and early spring.

Here's a link to a University of Illinoise web page with a photo and good short article on rose canker.

Cheers, Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: University of Illinoise Rose Garden

Dmoore, as rose canes age they don't all stay green. Some can get brown and barky looking over time. It doesn't mean they are dead. If they are very black and/or shriveled that's a different story. Even green looking canes can be dead if they are shriveled from drying out. Temperatures may not have been the problem. It's possible that they were winter damaged by drying winds.

Start at the top of each cane and cut off a piece about 2 inches long. Look at the center of the cane where you cut. Is it white/greenish or tan/brown? White/greenish is healthy live cane. Tan/brown is dead wood. Keep cutting down the canes in 2 inch pieces until you get to wood that has a white center. You should be good from there down. When you cut look for the little reddish nubby buds on the canes and try to cut about a 1/4 inch above an outward facing one at a slight angle so water will roll off.

It's still very early in the season and too soon to give up hope for any of those roses. Nice list by the way! Relax, give them some time to get warm and see what happens.

Rick,- that is a good site. One of the only one that lists a treatment for the disgusting crown gall I found this afternoon. Ick.

Thanks, Seil,
Will follow your advice.
Thanks everyone else for your imput!

Seil's advice to prune to white pith is correct for young canes of hybrid teas.

The OP asked when to fertilize. There is no point in fertilizing until there are green leaves to utilize the nutrients. Be sure not to exceed labeled doses of fertilizer, and if you are using more than one kind of fertilizer, reduce doses accordingly. (Labeled doses are always on the generous side.) If you overfertilized last season, there should be plenty of nutrients left over except for nitrogen. Available nitrogen is transient in the soil, so N needs to be applied every year, in several small doses if you are using a fast nitrogen source. By contrast, excess phosphate can build up harmfully in the soil if you keep applying more than is needed.

These were just delivered from my local nursery. They are knockout roses but look really unhealthy. Should I return them?