Don't feel bad. Nothing grows for anyone all the time, except, of course, for dandelions and crabgrass. And only experiment will tell you for sure what you can grow--this year.
We're having the coldest winter in some years too.
Melissa

Have you thought about putting old Christmas lights around winter tender roses--I've heard they change the microclimate by a full zone--10 degrees.

You don't earn a "told you so" with this winter. You have to wait until three or four years of growing the same roses and seeing what really works in your yard. Once you start to know your own microclimates, then and only then will things start to fall into place.
This ISN'T the coldest winter. My yard is hitting high single digits; since we bought this farm, we've been below zero Fahrenheit twice/two separate years.
Then there was the year in the 80s when the temps dropped to twenty below for three nights in a row.
The variation that nature hits us with...will this year be more or less damaging? I don't know. I do know that this year, the roses went into this well watered after a well hydrated season. Spring will tell.

You might be pleasantly surprised. No throwing in the towel on these guys until spring comes. They might be just sleeping underground...

And, after all, it's no different than the many Gallicas and Damasks and Centifolias we planted here -- even after being told they would not work.

They didn't.
But we had to learn it for ourselves, and I don't regret the experience of growing them.

Jeri

redsox, wait till spring - and try those Christmas lights.

Sherry

Hang in there, redsox. I hope they pull through for you.
It's unusually cold here too. Supposed to get down into the mid-teens, and we're not used to that kind of cold.

Randy

Jeri made me think of this. An abbreviated version:

"To dream ... the impossible dream
To fight ... the unbeatable foe
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow
To love ... pure and chaste from afar
To try ... when your arms are too weary
To reach ... the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star ...
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ...
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ...etc."

I think the Hell part has to do with drought/flood, midges/mites/beetles, fungus, temperature and untold other plagues ;-)

Don't feel bad, you did your best and you TRIED. And don't forget, like I always say, I (hopefully) got more flowers out of it than a store bought bouquet so money well spent!

On a serious note, you really won't know the damage until spring, so have a cocktail and try to think of puppies until then (yeah, right ;-) Good luck!

Redsox- Don't give up yet! You never know until spring, but my mom is zone 5 and planted two Oklahomas (zone 5) and one Tiffany (zone 7) together two years ago and last winter was terrible. Lots of snow and very cold temperatures, even for us. The two Oklahomas didn't make it, but the Tiffany was beautiful and blooming all summer.

With the wind chill, we had a -8 this morning. That is very, very unusual. Of course our new snow (no school today) will provide a nice little blanket.

I will know if they are dead by

April?
May?
June?

I have not had any roses here die from winter dieback... yet. Luckily, I have a few "spare" roses in the garage. If some of them don't make it, I'll replace with a spare or two. Spares are really just the pot ghetto.

they are not deaths, they are opportunities - break the mould

These opportunities are killing my budget!

I'm not too worried about losing roses this winter. Its been consistently cold the last 3 weeks. But, I think it is better for the roses to be consistently cold instead of the typical freezing/thawing cycles we endure.

I'm still waiting for it to get cold. So far, we haven't been below 10F (and yes, there isn't a minus sign there) and the lowest temperature in the forecast is still only 5F (again, note total absence of minus sign) In the fifteen years we've lived here, we haven't had a winter where we didn't at least flirt with zero, so I'm not expecting this to last.

Ive only lost dozens and dozens of roses, who am I to throw a stone, I probable tried a couple dozen bucks before finally listening to mad gallica who TOLD me they wouldnt work on our east cost climate... sigh, I would keep seeing them and had to try another...

It has been a fairly warm winter here as well, we did it 0 or -1 for one night though. But nothing like the record cold of last year... We also had very little snow so fall, maybe 20-25 inches and some of it has melted. which is odd. But IM not complaining about it !

Silverkelt

I had three or four roses that I thought had died last winter threw up new canes in August or September and bloomed in October or November! So don't give up on them.

Country girl makes a good point. An established woody plant can die back to the ground and still come back from the roots: I've seen this happen with roses. When the visible part of a shrub dies I always give it a year before giving up on it. If the roses in question were very small they're less likely to recover, have less material to restart from. And of course if the roses were grafted what you will get is the rootstock. This last reason is why, every spring, 'Dr. Huey' blooms in neglected yards all across the U.S.
Melissa

Wow, I have heard of roses returning in June/July but not as late as August or September. Did they look totally dead?

Mine are very covered in snow right now so it is not as though I know some are dead, just predicting that they might not all make it. I am not as worried about the Arethusa and Duchesse du Brabant actually, as I am about Comtesse du Cayla which was still not all that large by Winter.

Last year with a much more mild winter but Spring fluctuations, Mutabilis and Cram Sup almost died down to the ground (they were new last year). But they did come back just fine, although never reaching more than about 2 feet.

If you are going to try to zone push at all in the northeast area, you have to have it grafted, own roots will just die out. Its hard to explain to someone outside of this area, but frankly own root roses other than cane hardy variety is worthless. Dr Huey isnt likely to survive in my zone as actual growth.

I dont want to get into a argument about this, its just the experience ive had, Im sure there are others who will defend both positions, but for me, marginal shrub roses, have to be grafted to do anything. Own roots will not mature enough in time for our short growing seasons to survive and thrive, but it being on a graft will regrow at a quicker rate in the spring. My growing season is 2-4 weeks shorter than ANYONE in the continental US area. Even areas like MN and ND actually get warmer quicker than we do here. The farther south you go in New England and th closer to the coast you are, those particular micro climates create different growing conditions.

silverkelt (sorry for any spelling mistakes, Im soooo used to F7 now! LOL)

I totally appreciate your point but I don't live in the Northeast. Sadly, you can see my user name. I do love Southern Maine, also.

Christmas lights!!!! I've been thinking of something to raise the temps around certain plants. I never thought of Christmas lights. Although the new led lights don't give off heat. I wonder if that would work in a late frost???

Don't give up redsox, if they are own root, they may come back. I am concerned about many of my roses. I don't do winter protection at all and it got down to 10 degrees last night. Sigh.

i would think that being actually under snow was OK - it acts as an insulator - my greenhouse is dark, no light getting in hardly, but snug. Many alpines are protected for months by a thick snow covering. Also, I have had roses left in pots which have been frozen solid for days (like now) but they generally come through, so hey, maybe all is not lost as so many have pointed out. We gardeners are always looking ahead in hope anyway, or we would never plant another bulb again.

Snow is helpful and wind chill doesn't matter. The key factors seem to be the seasonal low and how dormant are the roses when the low spikes come. We've had several mornings at 7-10 degrees, and I don't see that as a threat to survival of anything but certain freakishly tender HTs..

The problem with teas may be that, if you have to prune severely (say) every other year, the plants will never achieve their proper shrub habit. But try them for a few years.

This will be my 7th winter in KY, and I am not so worried about the cold. Granted I'd almost given up entirely on teas and chinas, but I still have a Georgetown Tea and a Mme. Lombard that are doing well. I'm more afraid of the temperature fluctuations we tend to get in the early spring and sometimes in midwinter, and real cold snaps in spring like the Easter freeze a few years back like Harry pointed out.

As this has been a slow extended cold after a gradual chill period of a few months, I'm not worried too much about the roses. If we do get those temperature swings in spring then it may be time to worry. I don't like to add more worry to my already long list of them so I've mostly switched to the hardier groups but it's always worth trying, I've been through my share.

Linrose, what OGRs do you grow? Any in addition to Georgetown Tea and Mme Lombard?