Wow Terry, Now thats cold. I hope you are staying nice and warm. We are getting terribly cold temps the next few days too. On weatherbug it has us getting to around 10 for nighttime temps. brrrrrrrr!! I hope your plants will be OK. I hope mine will too. I planted some in Nov & Dec during a few warmer days so I could get them in the ground and only 1 or 2 seem to have bit the dust so I am going to wait and see if anything survives on them this spring. Take care, Judy

Terry, all of us up here are moaning and groaning about the temps too - even the hardiest sorts are complaining. It will be -16F Thursday during the day, -11F Friday afternoon, and will drop to -22F overnight! We will only be getting some relief on Monday, and then of course, warmer temperatures mean snow.
I wouldn't worry about your roses, though, as long as you've got lots of snow cover (2 feet here). Plus, since you've buried your bud unions 6" deep, they are well insulated. I've never lost a rose planted in the ground to winter cold, but I have reliable, deep snow cover, and I mound 10-12" of soil (my bud unions are only 2-3" deep). My Dr Van Fleet, on the other hand, will surely lose any cane above the snow. Last winter was mild, and he lost none.
Don't worry, you should be fine. (But, if you're like me, well, of course you'll worry!)
Judith

Judith, I should have mentioned that we've got about maybe 5" of snow cover. I guess I shouldn't feel so bad compared to your minus -22F. I didn't do the soil mounding, but they do have about 4-5 inches of oak mulch.

I do have lots of new roses that I just put in this past spring, so this will be their first winter. I just wish it would have been a milder one for them to get their 'winter legs'.

Thanks for the reassurance!
-terry

I'm not worried .
Even though it's forecast to be in the minus double digits, a blanket of snow on my beds will keep them cozy.
Snow along with the leaves that blew in the beds last fall will carry them through. All my roses are hardy shrub types that have proven to be very tolerant of the cold.
Having planted your bud unions deep will help and if you've provided ant protection at all, you should be fine.
Instead of having 3 inches of green cane this spring you might have only 2. Unless you have lots of tender hybrid teas and other modern varieties your roses should fare well.
Now is not the time to worry. One should always prepare for the worse in the fall when you can do something about it. Now you have to live with it. Planting your roses deep was a good first step.

Hoping Joshua Bradley (which I sent to Peoria, Illinois) survives.

And we just THOUGHT it was gonna be cold here in Georgia!Whoo wee. I surely do hope we'll be ok since we don't any snow to insulate. If it's gotta be this blame cold it OUGHT to snow. I've never had any trouble with roses not surviving but this will be the first winter for a lot of ht's and english I didn't have before. Believing for best!
April

Ah, the challenge of zone 5 gardening. I am always curious to see who suvives these winters. The thrill of the unknown. If I have a big loss, then I have more room for the 30 I have on order ( :

Yes, I've done my duty carrying in all potted roses to my garage. Told myself I need to reduce my pot population.

Carla

-22F right now in central MN. It's the coldest it's been for a few years now. I guess I won't be seeing any flowers on my zone 5 Sargent Cherry this spring.

But I lose more rose canes to rabbits in the winter than cold. My gallicas are ripped right down to the snow line. So much for hardy once-bloomers and the guaranteed spring bloom!

I am in zone 7. We have no snow cover. Normally roses are pruned here the middle of Feb., but I am wondering if I should prune now and cover?

Help please. I do not as all of us want to loose anything. I have already suffered a big loss from voles.

marthaye,
You should be fine but in the future, allow leaves etc. to collect at the base of your bushes in the fall. It never hurts to have a little protection in case an unexpected winter freeze hit's you.
I'd wait until your regular pruning time. It's not wise to prune early as a temporary warm up could promote leaf break on early pruned bushes.

Aarrgh...it was -17F at 8:30 am and has 'warmed' to -13F at noon. Expected to get down to -19F tonight. We're expected to have a warming trend over the weekend into the 20s....sounds balmy at this point.
-terry

The problem with letting leaves accumulate around the rose base is that it causes canker when the temperatures are above freezing.

We haven't gotten any of the real cold this year. I've had a theory that it is very difficult for us to go below zero until after the river freezes. However, that river should have frozen solid last week.

The big problem with this weather is that school doesn't send the kids out for recess unless it's fairly close to freezing. At least tonight is CYO basketball practice, and there are normal games on Saturday. Anything for access to a heated gym!!!

Yeah, glad for the snow here (for roses' sake only)....I just wish we'd get to -25 w/ wind chill factor so we could have a school delay or a day off!! My 19 yo and I did go snowshoeing last weekend. Husband Gary works 12 hour shifts outside in it though, so for that reason, I really wish it were warmer! :0) Phyl

carla, I just phoned DH and asked him to put the pot ghetto in the garage. I am a bit concerned about my roses in the ground because I don't do any winter cover and it's going down to 10 tonight. I'm also worried about my gardenias. AAARRGGGHHH!!

At least it's not spring and I don't have new growth to get zapped.

Hi Terry, Just checking in with you. I hope you and everyone getting hit so hard will be OK and stay as warm as possible. We are getting hit pretty hard too but not like you guys. Lets all think spring and maybe it won't hurt quite so hard. Take care and stay warm, Judy

Hi Terry, I fully understand what you are saying. Last night we got down to -22 and tonight is forecast to be -25 or lower. The windchill was -37 at 11 AM today. Same for tonight and tomorrow morning. The car really "groaned" this morning when I went out to start it.

We are lucky in one respect though, we have a good cover of snow. Just during the month of December we got 42 inches. Some has melted during warming periods, but seems like we have had snow every other day since the holidays. The snow blower is currently residing in the porch attached to the house! I am hoping that with the nice blanket of snow, the damage will be minimal. Keeping fingers crossed for everyone.

Hi Mary & Judy, Well, we had a temp of -22F this morning; the weatherman says temps will 'recover' to 9F today.

Mary, 42 inches! I can't imagine where you would put all that much snow and then the muddy, muddy mess it makes when it melts. Is that much snow normal for your area? We've got about 6" on the ground right now, which I'm thankful for, but wish it was more because of the deep freeze. I know come spring I won't have an inch of cane left, but as long as my roses survive, I'll be thankful.

Judy, how's the 'spring' cleaning coming along? I'm down to the family & laundry rooms. I gotta say, this has been the only good thing about being trapped indoors. I've been ripping through this house dusting and waxing like a crazy woman; I've even organized my sock drawer. Sad, but true.
I wanna go outside and garden sooo bad, but it's not gonna happen anytime soon. I keep getting those purty gardening catalogs, and it's making it even worse.

Haven't been as cold here as some of you, but cold enough. It's been around 0 f. plus or minus a few degrees. Lake St.Clair and Lake Erie moderate the temps a bit in my area. We have some snow cover, around 8"-10"s I know Graham Thomas will be dead to the snow line. I'm always thankfull for my explorer roses and hardy once bloomers when the temps drop like this.

Hey Terry, Spring cleaning is getting done slowly. I was even trying to wipe down some of my ceilings. How goofy is that. I still have more than half the house to do. Suppose to be cold next week too so I get to try to finish up then. Dreeeead doing my closets. Glad you will be "warming" up to 9 degrees today. TTYL, Judy

Thorn, I was tempted to trim back Graham Thomas last fall because he was getting pretty tall, but it was good that I left him alone, then. I did spray everyone with Wilt-Pruf, but I doubt it helped with these bitter temps.

Hey keep your cold air up north where it belongs! Here in the Tampa Bay area of Florida our lows should be about 38 degrees tonight. I have to haul out my blankets and cover the cold sensitive plants.

Hey Amber, the last time it got this cold for an extended period we headed south to Sanibel Island for a week's stay at Christmas and the darn cold followed us; they had power 'brown outs' on the island. We had to wear sweats but no swim suits until about the day before we had to leave. Do they still have those brown outs when it gets cold?

Now I feel guilty that our temps are between 70 at noon and 40 at night. I am blowing some of our warm weather your way guys.

Stay warm,
FJ

I was just going to ask all you about this... here it was -21 below F. The past really sub zero winter, I did have rugosas make it through with absolutely no dieback at all. If you want 100 percent hardy, get one of those. Now I have about 6 and I expect the same this year.

I do not know what is going to happen to the others. I cover them with leaf mulch and there is quite a bit of snow cover unlike in other years. It is worse without snow cover and when we get those freeze-thaw cycles 3-4 times a winter... I have found much worse damage when that happens.

My few buck roses (exc. carefree beauty) will likely have a lot of cane death. However they are so vigorous they will spring back. These are own root.

I will not know what to expect with my own root floribundas though. In other winters, even though we get cane death, they spring back pretty well.

I am worried about graham thomas though. He has been pretty good through 8 winters now I lost one to a freak ice storm 2 years ago. Have 2 remaining. They are my favorites so I hope they hold on. I will report in.

Good luck all.

sc gardener Graham Thomas is a real rebounder. I had him 5 years in the ground around 6' then was killed to the snow line after a winter like this. But within 2 yrs was up and running again, only to be knocked back by yet another cold winter. So i moved it to a less important spot and planted a more hardy variety. WE seem to get 5 yrs of fairly mild winters here then we get a few yrs.with extreme temps. I have two GT but in spots where if they die to the ground it won't affect the over all look of my garden.Other than the hardiness issue its a great bloomer and reasonibly diease resistant here and i love the butter yellow color.

Hopefully there is a positive event due to this cold winter. A number of detrimental insect species have been extending their range northward due to the previous mild winters & they bring with them animal/human diseases, plant diseases and plant infestations. I remember a Co. Ext. Hort. Agent telling that we needed a certain number of minus degree temp hours and it would kill many of these new over-wintering invaders.

It would be great if the -22F we had for two days would kill off or minimize the Japanese beetle population here in central Illinois. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Terryjean, I hope you're enduring well. We are off of our teens freeze for now and I was starting to go crazy. I hear you on the beetles too.

Carla

Carla, it's not so cold now; it actually made it up into the 30s before plunging up back to 7. Typical Illinois winter.

My little 7-year old grandson, who had the liver transplant almost 2 years ago, had to go back to Chicago Childrens Memorial yesterday by ambulance because he had another high temp of 103.5 yesterday a.m. and we had to rush him to the local hospital. His liver meds caused him to have cancer last summer, so he was at Childrens from early June until mid-August, so his immune system is severely suppressed and he catches everything. He had to be life-flighted to Childrens in November because of an ear infection that got into his bloodstream and caused him to go septic, and it was very touch-and-go for a week. He was a very sick little boy. So please pray for him and his recovery.

This time they think it's just the flu...but his hepatologist doesn't want to take any chances because of what happened in November so she ordered him back to Chicago. Kind of puts life into perspective, doesn't it?
Hope your family is doing well also.
Take care,
Terry

Terry, I will definitely say a prayer for your little grandson, and the rest of your family. No child should have to go through all that. And yes, it sure does put everything else into persective...
Judith