I have about 35 roses in containers overwintering in my garage this winter which is about my norm. You would be surprised at how much difference the temps are between the garage and the outside temps. I make sure my container roses have frozen soil before putting them in the garage and then when it snows I put many shovels of snow on top of them in the garage to provide moisture and a blanket of insulation that keeps the temps even more level. I have never lost any roses overwintering in my unheated garage this way. I checked on them today and find I still have many of them that the leaves are still soft and healthy green despite the bitterly cold below zero temps which we have had many of this year. Come early Spring I bring them all out and strip off the foliage and prune any dead, weak, or sickly looking canes--which ususally isn't very much, and then they are pretty much ready to go for the next growing season. I always have roses in my garden on the shovel prune list and it is at this time I dig them up and transplant roses from the freshly prepared Pot Ghetto plants into the vacated garden spots. The roses are usually still quite dormant, but will readily wake back up as the days lengthen and warm. The main key to successfully overwintering roses anywhere is to have healthy roses going into the cold weather and then providing needed moisture during the winter to prevent them from completely drying up. Good Luck with your roses, John

Thank you for the tips Dublinbay, your vote for Austins is encouraging, I didn't think we could really grow them here. I'm a member of HMF, and I've looked at many of the rose lists of gardeners around me, but I have noticed that HT make up most of the lists. A couple of years ago I got down to the rose garden in Tulsa but I guess that previous winter had frozen back most of the roses there, and they were all pruned back; maybe half had escaped the temperatures and were blooming fairly well in the 100+ heat. They do have some Austins down there, but they were "on vacation" so I didn't have a chance to see them. I just assumed that our climate was just too tough on them, and they hated our cold and heat. Cold spring weather also cancelled my rose society's tour to a garden near Tulsa. The couple grows lots of old roses, and 1x bloomers, and I was looking forward to seeing it, and to find out just what does grow here amoung the older classes. My husband and I like the looks of those lush English borders, but while he is willing to try everything, I'm more of a practical bent, and want pick roses that have a fairly good chance around here. I have yet to see the roses up there in Kansas City, and I don't know if Botanica, the garden in Wichita, has any roses. We've only been through parts of Powell Gardens and saw only rugosa roses, but those shrubs of 'Blanc Double de Coubert' captured my husband's imagination, and he said "We need roses that smell like this in our yard!" I love the looks of Floribundas, and am willing to try climbers too, I'm wondering which roses do very well here, and can become large sized shrubs, and climbers with the weather conditions that we get.

I did a load this morning and decided to check the water temperatures. Dishes were unrinsed with dried sticky soil and were sitting a few days. I used a Cascade Action Pak with the power of dawn. I decided to try the Normal cycle because it does two prerinses before the main wash. I made sure not to use the water in the kitchen, although there was some hot water in the pipe system because I had taken a shower 5 hours previous. Prewash one: the incoming water was 74F. I waited 4 minutes and measured it inside the DW. The temperature was 68F. Prewash two: the incoming water was 103F. I waited 8 minutes and measured it inside the DW. The temperature was 73F. Main wash. The incoming water was 106F. I waited a bit and noted that after 10 minutes the time remaining countdown stopped...probably delaying to heat the water. It stayed delayed for about 7 minutes then resumed. After 45 minutes I opened the door and measured the inside temperature it was 116F. The wash continued a few more minutes. I did not measure the first rinse water, but 5 minutes before the end of the last rinse I measured the water and it was 150F. I don't usually use the Normal cycle, but I have measured the wash temperature in a few others. I think China/crystal was 111F, sensor wash was 123F, heavy soil 150F, and now normal was 116F. These cycles except heavy soil have used a temperature less than what many hot water heaters are set at and the DW seems to clean exceptionally well using them. Low temps in the wash with detergent help to reduce etching so perhaps you really need to connect the DW to cold water to get the most benefit from it.

This is an old thread but it helped me. We had a leak under the kitchen sink, somewhere. There's a leak it turns out on the hose for the sprayer. 'kind of where it forms a 'U' near the weight. We have a Kohler K560 CP. (one handle for hot and cold) For some stupid reason I shut off the hot and cold valves under the sink. But it was nice that after 3 years they were not frozen at all. So im using a bucket under the leaky line until I get the replacement hose. ANYWAY, when I turned on the valves and the faucet, hot did not work at all, and cold worked normal. And then I lost some pressure on the cold. So I eventually tried what was recommended in this thread. I shut off the hot valve under the sink and I detached the hot line at the valve point and put it in a bucket. The cold valve was open, and I opened the cold full blast at the sink and held my hand tight over the faucet tip. I did that a few seconds. I was glad to see water and sediment had shot out of the hot line into the bucket. I reattached the hot to the valve and opened the valve. Both hot and cold water flow were restored. So I haven't flushed out the cold line because I dont want to break what isnt broken. :)