Lisa, Blackberries produce most of their fruit on two-year-old wood. In other words, each nice strong green cane that grows needs to suffer some winter weather before it will produce most of its fruit its second year. Then after that, it dies or is close to death. I think this is why you are seeing some of your canes falling off. They have fruited over the past couple years and are now dead or not worth keeping. At the same time, you have a lot of brand new bright green canes coming up. Those will not produce much fruit this year and should be left alone to grow until they are about 4 or 5 feet high. So basically, here's what you need to do: Each winter (or I guess you could do this right now if some of your canes are falling off), identify the canes that look totally dead and full of branches and ready to fall off, and cut them off at the ground. These ones have already fruited and thus must be three years old and are no good to you anymore. If they have fresh flowers, you could keep them this year but I'd whack everything that wasn't vigorous and green next winter. With the canes you have left, they should be greenish-brown instead of a dull gray. Thin the greenish ones out so that there is one every ~4 inches or something like that. It's not good to have them so close together that you cannot reach all the fruit. A lot of growers say that each plant that you originally put in the ground is reall only intended to grow maybe 5 or 6 canes at one time, so if your original plant is growing 10 or more canes, then you have way too many! Pick out the weakest ones and cut them off at the ground, and leave all the strong green ones alone. Each summer, when the green ones get to be around shoulder height, cut the tops off to promote more fruiting branches for next year. If they don't get to be shoulder height, you can just leave them alone. You'll also want to tie them up so they don't fall over. Each year you should have about a 50/50 mix of brand new green canes that don't produce fruit, and older brownish canes that produce all of your fruit and then die in the winter. So then when winter comes, you cut the dead ones off, and new green ones grow to take their place next spring while the green ones from last year make your fruit. Make sense now?

Hi Kristin, Sorry for the delay getting back to you and thanks for the additional information on what you are looking for. I really think what you have planned will be stunning once you are finished, but as I said, I was concerned about the amount of pruning and general maintenance you might end up having to do each spring with some of the choices you noted. I assumed you were going for large mass hedge plantings of one or two varieties. Carefree Beauty is a very good rose and it blooms well and repeats fast and certainly has very good disease resistance too. However, it is not totally or reliably cane hardy in a true zone 4. I find it loses well over half of its cane in zone 5 and even more in a bad winter. It bounces back very well however due to good vigour. You'd need to place it near the back of the border, as it grows tall and upright, but expect to prune a lot of deadwood. Morden Blush is also a great rose and one of my favorites. Provided it doesn't get hit by bad BS late in the season, it is almost tip hardy and shouldn't have much dieback for you. Getting hit by BS seems to really affect the inherent winter hardiness of most of the Morden roses. This was my concern with a mass planting of Morden Blush. The lack of air circulation would make it more prone to BS, which in turn makes it more prone to dieback, not to mention more work for you if you decide to spray and not such a nice sight if you have a whole bed with BS'd leaves. With all of its wonderful attributes Morden Blush does trend towards late season BS. I never find it bad here, but your climate may well be different. The choice on how much work you put into this is yours. I will recommend some roses that are cane hardy to the tips and very disease resistant while also blooming profusely. Most of these are Explorer series roses and Rugosas, with a few exceptions. I'll keep mostly with the pink theme. Pinks: Frontenac (Explorer)- To me, the most underrated rose of all of the Explorers and one of the best. Great for the front to middle of the border, blooms literally continuously, is exceptionally cane hardy and disease resistant. Simon Fraser (Explorer)- shorter than Frontenac. Blooms vary from single to semi-double. Blooms continuously and the blooms have a unique way of opening that makes them very charming in a simple way. John Davis (Explorer)- Can be grown up a support as a climber/rambling shrub to add vertical height to a garden bed. It is hardy enough to train up an igloo... :) LOL Also fantastic grown as a large, wide arching shrub. The canes are long and flexible and have few thorns and will arch over and produce more laterals and more blooms when grown as a large shrub. This rose blooms very heavily in the spring and is rarely without blooms up to frost once established and well watered. Will put out more growth than blooms in 1st season, but look out after that. Hardy to the tips in even zone 4 and very good disease resistance. However, can mildew if not given enough water and air circulation. I just realized after typing all this that you have this rose and William Baffin too. Well, at least that saved me mentioning WB... Winnipeg Parks (Parkland Series rose) - Dark pink to bright red. Colour is variable, but stands out well. A relatively short and round bush, maybe 3' tall at most. Winter hardiness is very good and better than some of the other Morden series roses. Can BS, but not prone to it and recovers quickly. Blooms in large flushes throughout the season and very, very quickly. Although not truly continuous, it always seems to be in bloom. If you like Morden Blush, you will also love this Morden rose. Carefree Wonder: Blooms look almost identical to Carefree Beauty, but not quite as big and blowsy looking. Plant is shorter growing with a nicer, more rounded shrub shape, blooms more profusely, repeats faster and is also hardier than Carefree Beauty. However, not as disease resistant. Slightly more prone to BS that Carefree Beauty, but not disease riddled by any means. You will likely need to prune 50%+ of the cane each spring in zone 4. Therese Bugnet: Tall, almost thornless rose with red canes. Large, beautiful, pink fragrant blooms of old fashioned look. Blooms heavily in spring and fall and always seems to have a few blooms. This rose laughs at the cold and does not dieback. It is also very disease resistant. It can mildew in warmer climates, but not prone to this in colder regions unless stressed. Grows tall in a strong, upright manner with a vase like shape. Great rose for back of the border or specimen plant. If you don't have one, you should. You will soon want more. Pink Grootendorst (Rugosa): No fragrance, but will be covered all season with small, carnation looking clear pink blooms. Hardy and bullet proof disease resistance. Frau Dagmar Hartopp (Rugosa): Beautiful large single blooms that appear all season and that are wonderfully fragrant. Produces large reddish/orange hips while still blooming and the foilage changes colours yellow/orange in late fall. Tip hardy, no disease, great rose. Rosa Zwerg (Rugosa): a good, low growing Rugosa that blooms well has very good fragrance and is also cane hardy to the tips, disease immune and produces good hips. Of the other roses you mention, I like Earth Song a lot and i find it a better rose than Carefree Beauty, but they are comparable in terms of hardiness and are both beautiful and floriferous. For your climate, the hardiest pink Austins are The Mayflower, Mary Rose and Eglantyne. All are very good roses, but all will die back quite a bit in zone 4. However, all have good vigour, should bounce back well and perform very well for you. I find all of them very disease resistant to BS in my garden, but Mary Rose and Eglantyne can be prone to late season mildew. The Mayflower stays clean and is arguably, slightly hardier than Eglantyne and Mary Rose. The Fairy would surive zone 4, as would Ballerina, but both would dieback extensively. The Fairy is truly not fun to have to prune extensively as the thorns hook down and tend to rip at your flesh once they dig in. If you look at reds, you can't really beat the Explorer rose Champlain for a mass planting and continual bloom. It is one of the less hardy Explorers, but will do fine for you with some pruning required. You will be hard pressed to see any foilage on this rose in the spring flush and beyond. It definately prefers blooming over growth... Other good reds to look at are: Elveshorn and Elmshorn: Pinkish red to red. Not truly cane hardy in zone 4, but both are touch plants that flower constantly and make a large impact. Very disease resistant. Grootendorst Supreme: Like Pink Grootendorst, but grows much larger and wider. A mature plant will have thousands of small carnation like blooms on the plant and they don't stop all season long. Tip hardy and disease immune. Robusta: Not really cane hardy in zone 4, but it doesn't matter. It's vigour is outstanding and it quickly grows right back to 5 to 6' tall with prolific single red blooms. Can be prone to BS, but repeats fast and heavy. No scent. Homerun: Hardier than Knockout and nicer bush shape, bloom and foilage. Will still dieback extensively in zone 4, but should do fine for you, will bloom non-stop and stay clean all year. Alexander MacKenzie (Explorer): Red blooms that look like a Hybrid Tea. Grows tall and blooms in good flushes. Very good disease resistance and good hardiness too. A rose that does everything very well, but nothing truly outstanding. Very good rose for the garden. Anyway, i should probably go to bed now...Hope this gives you some additional ideas. Enjoy and good luck. Would love to hear what you finally decide and to see some pics once done and blooming. Take care, Tim P.S. - You may also want to look at the Explorer rose, Cpt. Samuel Holland as another pink/red climbing option for the bed. Again, tip hardy and essentially disease immune.

I don't grow Autumn Damask, but folks report nasty thorns. I love Comte de Chambord since it's small & compact & fast rebloom, and the thorns are NOT BAD. It has tiny prickles ...the ones that poke me badly are the big roses with large thorns like Lady of Shallot. Both Carol and I have roses that die through our harsh winter. My winter got down to -14 F last week with -20 F windchill factor. Today we have a snow storm with 6 inch. of snow. Firefighter, Wise Portia, and Cloudert Soupert died multiple times in my zone 5 winter, but they are worth growing for amazing scents. Cloudert Soupert is thornless & tiny for the pot, and I like its scent better than Sharifa Asma. Below bouquet: Large pink is Evelyn, tiny light pinks are Cloudert Soupert, Upper pink is Louis Estes (bi-color). Below is Comte de Chambord Below is Duchess de Rohan (dark pinks, the scent rivals Comte but it has poor repeat). I like Comte way better than Duchess de Rohan: Below is Wise Portia in only 4 hrs. of morning sun Below Wise Portia turns purplish in cold weather, and the scent is best in cold weather. Its scent is WAY BETTER than Twilight Zone: Below is Firefighter, the leaves are very pretty, and upper 1/2 of bush is thornless. In below bouquet, red Firefighter has the best scent (fruity damask), next is orange Versigny (like an apricot pie), and least is Liv Tyler (mothball and sour apricot). One bloom of Firefighter can perfume the entire room .. I can smell it 10 feet away. Firefighter is stronger scent than Mr. Lincoln, and Firefighter gives more blooms.

Lara Zone 10 If the rose was sufficiently damaged upon arrival, I’d ask for replacement. However, they may have become damaged more since left in bag. Now aid cut off any total black cane parts. If they are slightly brown & green they are usually fine. I think the white spots you are referring look like brown spots to me? If the majority of the cane is green I’d keep it. The white canes will green up in sun light… frequently I have them come white & green up quickly. You only need 2-3 good canes to grow a fabulous rose bush. It is up to you, but I may have prune it back to a 6 inch cane or less if I don’t like how the cane looks. All that grows afterwards is “healthy fresh new canes.” You live in zone 10-so you are going to get tons of growth & tall growth with all that sun eventually. So I wouldn’t worry about what you decided to prune back. I like new growth w/new soft green thorns & new pretty canes. Anything you don’t like-just remove it. It’s really your preference. You can train the rose to look like what you want. Have fun! Happy Gardening!