I'm not sure that Sexy Rexy has a chance. Should I just be patient & give it more time?

Right after the winter, it had a few canes which later turned brown & died. It looks so pathetic now.

This is Bride's Dream now. Is it a lost cause? It sure looks dead to me. It was a beauty.

This is Bride's Dream last spring.

Sexy Rexy last year.

I know how you feel. That's exactly how a lot of mine are looking right now. I'm still waiting and hoping they'll send up some new shoots from the bottom like many of the others did. Give it some more time and see. You can always get some new ones next spring if they don't make it.

seil, what surprised me this year is that container roses that have alteady made it through several winters totally kicked the bucket this year. I actually used your method of winter protection this past winter & the roses looked ok in March. And then this.

If I lose Sexy Rexy & Bride's Dream, that will make it 6 out of 21 roses that didn't make it. That's way too many. I did mound soil & mulch several inches above the graft. What I will do next winter (if I have any roses left) is make a collar around the graft & fill it in with soil & mulch. Then I'll put the burlap protection around the pots & fill that in with leaves.

I'm hoping for a miracle & hope your roses come back to life too.

Here is a link that might be useful: make rose collars from newspaper (middle of article)

I think Sexy Rexy is looking fine, as long as there is any growth from above the graft (I can't tell in the photo). Some roses are slow to put on growth in the spring after being cut way back, so my roses are all wildly varying heights given their different "bounce back" speeds.

I wouldn't give up on Bride's Dream at this point, since the remaining graft knob looks at least cream colored in the canes with firm, not dried out bark and wood at the base. She might be a particularly slow recovery time rose, and there's no harm to leaving her in the pot with regular water to see if she'll sprout some growth. Roses can surprise you. Just watch for whether any new growth is coming from below the graft, since that's likely to be Dr. Huey showing his persistent little head.

Cynthia

I experienced much the same thing, View. I lost more of the potted ones than the ones in the ground. I'm not sure why either. They were well protected and had snow cover as well. Like you, when I took them out of storage in April many of them had green cane. Later that all died back and now they're just stumps. Where as the ones in the ground for the most part died to the soil but are coming up with new basals from the grafts. The only thing I can think of is that it was just too cold for too long a period of time and the damage was already done. There was one two week period when we never got above single digits at all and were well below zero every night. As low as -26 degrees a few nights. That's pretty cold and is probably what did them in. I haven't counted all of them out yet because things have not been very warm here still but if they all do die I'll have lost some where around 60 roses altogether. A few in the ground but mostly in the pots. Even the tree rose that was heavily wrapped and in the shed has no signs of life yet. I'm sad about some of them but I have a huge want list and will slowly replace them with those. I'm looking at it as a chance to regroup and maybe make some better decisions on what I want in my garden. This isn't the first time I've suffered heavy losses. I lost 30 some in April of 2007 when we had that Easter freeze. I'm sure this won't be the last time either. We can do our best but Mother Nature is still in charge. Every once in a while she lets us know that.

seil, the temps have been in the 60s & 70s here in Brooklyn since May 1. Sat, Sun & Mon were in the low 80s so my other roses are really leafing out. Even my wimpy Austins that were only about 10" tall after 3 years came thru the winter great & look quite healthy now. I think I should stop complaining about them.

So I guess I'll wait another few weeks to see what happens with my casualties. I wonder if I threw Honor out too soon; it looked dead to me so I dumped it to make room for new roses. Oh well.

Cynthia, thanks for giving me hope. I went out to check & Sexy Rexy's miniscule growth is coming from the graft, not below. I really hope that Bride's Dream makes it since it's the kind of rose that takes your breath away. Only time will tell.