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nycowboy

Are roses very late this year?

nycowboy
9 years ago

I'm getting discouraged. My roses are VERY VERY late in starting foliage this year, and I'm afraid that the horrible winter killed off quite a bit of them. I have 2: a large Blanc Double de Coubert, and a David Austen Jude the Obscure.

They are starting to put out leaves in spots, but even the rugosa has large areas of no leaves. Normally they are in full leaf by now. How much longer do I wait before I declare parts of these bushes dead? :(

I want to hold out hope that they are just in shock this year from the winter and the horridly cold spring.

Do any of you have the same problem?

Comments (16)

  • Michaela (Zone 5b - Iowa)
    9 years ago

    Yes. :( An old rose bush on our property that the previous owners planted is showing zero signs of life. I am really disappointed and not sure how long to wait either.

    It was about 6 feet tall unpruned. I cut it back about 2 feet. Canes are completely dead, from what I can tell all the way to the base. It's showing zero signs of life, even at the very bottom. No green, no buds.

    I am torn on what to do as well. I don't want to stare at this huge eye sore for long... It's right along our driveway and is visible from the street and the windows in our dining room.

    I don't want to tear it out early though either if I just need to be more patient. But the canes are definitely dead though, so I suppose even if the roots are alive, I should cut the canes down. :(

    I hope your roses come back!

    Michaela

  • KnoxRose -7a
    9 years ago

    I'm sorry to hear about both of your rose troubles, I am a fairly new gardener and I cringe when I think of all these roses I just planted not coming back next year. For me, things seem slow too, but I think it is probably my inexperience with regular rose schedules & new gardener's impatience, two of the five bare roots that I planted this spring are lagging way behind the other three, but as I have learned from this forum, that is probably due to the fact that different species of roses grow at different speeds and times. Anyway...

    Allenz5, from what I understand if there are ANY leaves or signs of life the plant can recover, I would trim off any obviously dead canes & just wait, they will probably bounce back.

    & Thegardenat902, If it were me I would cut it way back, because a cane that is dead will not come back to life, & it will only be a strain on the plant to attempt to support it. Other than that I am not sure, maybe give it some rose tone and hope for the best?

    I truly hope that both of your roses recover!

    Jessica

  • dublinbay z6 (KS)
    9 years ago

    I'm not sure how much worse it was in your zone 5, but in my zone 6, spring bloom has been about 2-3 weeks late. And lots of the plants were nothing but brown canes (dead) on top but with lots of new growth emerging from the base. Had to prune most of my roses down nearly to the ground. That new growth is healthy, however, and growing like crazy now that it is warming up. I'll just have to accept that most of my roses will be about one foot shorter this year. Other than that, the blooms are opening more and more each day now--after waiting for what seemed an impossible length of time for them to get started.

    My recommendation is to go out and do a kind of "rough cut"--take off most of those brown canes. They are dead and there is no point in looking at dead canes. When the weather gets warm enough and you can determine whether or not the rose will start putting out new growth from the ground level, you can more carefully prune down to that new growth. Then water and feed as usual--and wait. Hopefully you will begin to see all sorts of signs of spring growth by then.

    Kate

  • nastarana
    9 years ago

    allenz5, I am in Utica, and here the roses are veeery late. I am expecting first bloom in July, in time for the Japanese beetles.

    I am only now seeing new growth from some I had thought dead. And I lost a few, alas.

  • dublinbay z6 (KS)
    9 years ago

    Don't give up on the seemingly dead ones. Some are much slower to wake up than others are. They may start putting out new green growth from the base in a couple weeks from now.

    Hoping for the best for you. : )

    Kate

  • seil zone 6b MI
    9 years ago

    If they are only leafed out to a certain point I would cut back to that point. The top part is probably all dead cane from winter. I had to cut most of mine right down to the ground. But any leaves growing means they are not dead and should recover.

    Mine are no where near blooming. I do have some new growth but not buds yet. It's going to be a very late season and I don't really expect anything like a spring "fllush". It will probably take a couple of years before some of them fully recover. That of course will depend on how bad future winters are.

  • thorngrower sw. ont. z5
    9 years ago

    Same here in my Z5 garden. The explorer roses made it threw this horrible winter. I cut most of the others down a month ago. Lots of new growth emerging. No big flush this year. I'll have 6 shrubs blooming in about a month. Then we will see about the others. I'm hoping for a milder winter......Good luck everyone.....

  • nicholas_delo 7a
    9 years ago

    My experience has been the same as dublinbay and seil's.

    My roses were a few weeks late coming up. I had to prune many of them aggressively to clear the blackened, ice-damaged canes. Even after pruning, many of the remaining, seemingly Ok canes soon died off. But I have had lots of good new grow coming from the base of my roses (and this is real growth not suckers).

    One thing I did notice however - some canes that had slight damage, and which threw off some good growth a few weeks ago, are now a starting to weaken, wither and die. So I find I'm pruning more off as the spring progresses.

    Lots of buds have finally emerged on most of my plants now, but last year at this point I had flowers.

    All in all, a few roses that i had written off as completely dead are making a miraculous comeback.

  • nycowboy
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Hi All. Thanks so much for the info. I haven't posted here in a very long time, and I'm so glad I did.

    It just surprised me how much the winter affected even my rugosa. That thing is impervious to weather. Normally it is starting to bloom by Memorial Day. Not this year. And Jude the Obscure is always behind that bush, so I just don't know what to do. I'm in Rochester, so we are close to Lake Ontario. Jude IS putting up new growth from the base. I'm excited by that. But the bush was so big before, and now I think I'm going to have to cut back a lot of it.

    But hey, at least now I know that I'm not alone!

  • kidhorn
    9 years ago

    Mine typically have their first big bloom around Memorial day and are pretty much on schedule. Maybe a week or so late.

  • kingcobbtx7b
    9 years ago

    After a harsh winter we typically advise clients and the general public to wait until June to start removing dead plants.

    That is here on the Texas Gulf Coast, where a typical winter won't have many days below freezing, this winter was decidedly colder. Our plants typically start leafing out and blooming late february or early march. Most of my roses didn't really bloom until april this year. I would give it time, chances are even if the top was killed, the roots would have survived.

    4 or 5 years ago I had some plants that didn't come back out until late june or early july.

  • farmerduck NJ Z6b
    9 years ago

    Don't give it up on seemingly hopeless roses just yet if you are in Zone 5. I thought that one of my Duchesses De Brabant was dead weeks after my other roses have leafed out. But just this past Sunday, I saw a tiny leaf growing from near the root. Just to give some context: I am in Zone 6b/7A and right now, most of my roses have buds on them, including the other DDB I have (which has also die back to the ground). Give you roses a couple of more weeks.

    I yanked out a "dead" rose weeks ago, which was a shame as it might very well have made it with a little bit of more patience from me. Well....

    Good luck!

  • nycowboy
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Hi again. Jude the Obscure has nice growth at the base and a couple of branches have leaves. What is frustrating is that this rose got to be over 8 feet tall and about 6 feet wide, and it seems a shame to have to cut it down to nothing and start over again. I have decided to wait a couple of weeks and see what happens, then prune as necessary. The rugosa (Blanc Double de Coubert) is doing... ok... but is very very slow to leaf out. Usually it is in full bloom or at least starting to bloom by now. I think the winter coupled with the spring bitter cold put the plants in shock. I went to a nursery this morning and the lady there (this is a specialty place, not run-of-the-mill stuff) said that lots of people here are having problems with roses.

    Looking at Jude: most of the canes are brown. But not dark brown. And that is what is puzzling me. Are there latent buds that I'm missing? There is little green wood except at the base. The good news is that the rose is alive. The bad news is that it may have to be cut WAY back. Goodbye 8 feet of beauty.

    So I'm taking a wait and see approach... patience, patience...

  • seil zone 6b MI
    9 years ago

    I just talked to a good friend of mine tonight. Her and her husband are ARS judges and have been judging shows all over the country this spring. From California to the Carolinas In talking with exhibitors from all over the USA she reported about hearing the same things we're experiencing. The story every where is severe numbers of loses, very slow growth, roses that came out of winter looking good and green and then the canes suddenly dying back to the ground. I know it doesn't help much but at least none of us are alone.

  • jim1961 / Central Pennsylvania / Zone 6
    9 years ago

    I'm finding canes here and there dying off too...
    Yep a very slow start this year... :-/

  • maj742 (zone 4-5) north-central WI
    9 years ago

    All of my roses in Green Bay WI died back to the ground or almost to the ground this year. Most are now growing robust shoots up from the base. I just cut back the dead wood to make room for the new growth on Carefree Wonder, Bonica, Nearly Wild, Seven Sisters, Double Red Knockout, and a few others. It was a really tough winter for us.