We have drought problems here, but you make me ashamed to whine about it. I salute you for hangin' in there.

Jeri

-20? Holy Moley. I'm hoping that your roses come through for you this summer, and that there is enough water for them. You are a brave soul.

Cynthia, your roses ARE important because they are important to YOU & give you happiness. A kind Gardenweb poster wrote similar things to me when I was bemoaning the Great Rose Wipeout years back, while apologizing that they weren't important in the grand scheme of things. The things we lavish love & work on feed us spiritually & beautify our surroundings.

That said, please hang in there--it WILL rain again & maybe sooner than officially predicted. We experienced a dreadful drought that peaked in 1980 with WEEKS of weather that never got below 100 & not a drop of rain. Then, without anyone predicting it, it just. started. raining. And it rained well & often throughout the next year.

Maybe you can "hunker down" your roses to bring them through the unforgiving weather. E.g., treat them like we do perennials (& roses) during the most brutal summer months--mulch, mulch, mulch--dont' fertilize & give them as much supportive water & care that you can until the weather breaks. Best wishes.

I applaud your courage and wish you the best. What bluegirl says is true, you never know when the drought will break and you'll have a good gardening year. It happened here last spring when I was expecting a horrible drought that didn't happen; on the contrary we had a lovely spring and fall.
I've never gardened in such harsh conditions as you have to reckon with and so won't offer advice. Just keep on gardening, and things will work out.
Melissa

Cynthia in Nebraska is in the same boat as essentially all of Kansas and western Missouri. We also here had summer temps in the high 90s and 100s for a long stretch with no appreciable rain. Everything fried. Except for one county in Kansas, the rest of the state has been put in a drought disaster category. Here in the KC area we have not had much of any rain at all for a long time. There are also some communities in the area that have no water in their wells and are having to have it trucked in. The winter wheat crops are not looking good now. I sure hope the weather changes for the much wetter, but nothing appears to be in the works. On top of that, I am supposed to have flood insurance for my house. Go figure.

That is a very sad thing for the freeze to hit like that after the year they had to endure. I was wondering how some light shade structures would do to protect against the worst sun and freezes. I shade my roses in summer when I go away in summer and when the heat goes above 98. The drought is awful. I feel so sad for everyone in your area.

Cynthia:
I am in Minn. where below zero is normal and I got tired of trying to wait till the ground froze before protecting my roses.

I have covered them in the past ten years without the ground frozen as often as I have waited till it froze.

The roses do not show any problems from that as I put Serenade on the bushes and ground before covering but it is uncovering at the wrong time in the spring that is most critical.
That is where I have lost most roses.

Be glad for that rain, as dry frozen ground DOES kill. It kills trees and roses die much easier.
I water my roses heavily before covering.

I feel so bad for those of you enduring these horrible droughts and insane weather conditions. And what makes the garden being hit so hard for us, is that many of us refuel our strength and sanity from our gardens, so when they are out of wack, so are we.

I mostly had to sit out this year with my roses due to the horrid gopher attack. I spent spring, summer and fall looking at short bare sticks sticking out of cages where once beautiful bushes had been. I was so sickened, I took a few months "off" from the garden, just keeping stuff wet, but basically ignoring everything and moving on to other things, so I wouldn't be depressed.

But, as mother nature would have it, everything has survived, and I have the potential to have a nice garden this year (god and who knows who/what else, willing).

The trials and tribulations of our gardens teach us so many life lessons. I hope you are able to look back at this one, and be able to smile soon...

I understand your frustration.
I just started growing roses last year. We had drought conditions in Kentucky and temperatures over 100 degrees for weeks. I had to water my roses every day. My poor Heirloom hybrid tea hated the hot weather. The mid-day sun just ate her blossoms. In June, we had an attack of Japanese beetles. I must have drown and killed over 300 of them to protect my bushes.
On the plus side, I never sprayed and because it was so hot, I had no trouble with blackspots. So, try to look at the bright side of things. c:

I do feel for you, Cynthia. It was very hot and dry here too last summer and I have the water bills to prove it, lol! Take heart though. Every season is different and you never know how they'll do for you this year.

I was hoping for a great season last year too with the mild winter we'd had. Unfortunately that mild winter meant a lot of insects had a boon year and I got hit so hard with thrips that I lost nearly my whole spring flush. They eventually went away and I did get some blooms later in the season though.

As for that freeze, don't panic. They're way tougher than people give them credit for. You may have to prune a little deeper this spring but they will survive and thrive! I've had a lot of years when I didn't get any protection on anything for what ever reason and they came back anyway. And now days I only protect the potted ones and TRY to keep the rabbits off the ones in the ground and that's it. That Easter freeze you mentioned? Well that year I had protected them...and I lost a bunch anyway. So go figure? But I really do think that yours will be A-OK!

I'm hoping we all get some needed rain and some decent weather for this season!! Here's to beautiful roses!

Wow, you've had a time of it! I think the entire country has had problems with the weather for the last 2-3 years. I'm in Texas, Gulf Coast, and we had such a bad drought that I had to quit watering some things that I decided didn't matter, and have started collecting rain water in barrels, 5 gallon buckets, and milk jugs. This is what I water with when it quits raining. I have about 300 gallons stored. With that and saving bath water and laundry water (for non-food plants), I cut my water bill from around $85/mo. to the minimum, around $25/mo. And it made me decide that I have enough roses. I had plans to get about another 5 or 6, and may get 1 or 2 more, and that's it. Can't afford to water them when we go for 4 months or so with about 1" of rain!

You are growing in one of the toughest climates in the US for roses! Any success is super-success in your very challenging climate. Keep trying until you hit upon the types that do well. It's not you, it's the -20s.

I feel for you, I grew up in Nebraska. Was so shocked that anyone could grow hybrid roses there. Live in Kansas now and yes it been bad. By June, I gave up on the annuals, putting my focus instead on my trees, perennial, roses and shrubs. We usually, get a lot more water then KC and even now we are still in a drought. I got puzzled looks from a couple of my neighbors because I was watering in November.
I remember the Easter freeze, lost a 1/4 of my garden and my favorite garden center that year.

Hi folks

Thanks so much for all your encouragement and support! It's so nice to know that I'm not alone in this, and that there are friends out there who understand that roses are important to us when we've lavished love and attention on them - Bluegirl put that well. Part of the fun of growing roses for me is that they need me in a way that daylilies never would, but this year they've needed too much attention for too little return. And I am indeed a lazy rose gardener, at least as much as I can be with 700+ roses. I don't spray anything except very occasional Liquid Fence or insecticidal soap, and they've all built some resistance from "tough love" for years that will hopefully help them weather all this. RpR, that's one reason I am totally toast if I winter protect before the ground freezes - without the Serenade and more fussing than I'm willing to do, far more roses will die from winter canker in my climate than winter kill.

For Nebraska, it's not the absolute low temperature but the constantly variable ups and downs of temperatures all winter that keep no reliable snow cover on the ground, and just enough warm spells to confuse the roses all winter (we've been alternating single digit weeks with 40's and 50's since Christmas). Thanks Hoovb for the sympathies that this is one of the toughest climates for roses! Statistically, Nebraska has wider temperature variations all year - hotter heat and colder cold - than any US state except South Dakota. A perennial breeder in Nebraska named Harlan Hamernik (who created Husker Red penstemon) says "if it'll grow in Nebraska, it'll grow anywhere". Not exactly true for roses, but we do make weather a challenge and a legitimate topic of conversation. Personally, I secretly think folks in zone 3-4 and below have it harder for roses, since I can get away with growing lots of hybrid teas if I winter protect a few inches at least, but the options are so much more limited further north.

I totally agree with ehamel and intris and bluegirl that this was the year to hunker down and just concentrate on keeping everything alive. I always mulch well for long-term survival in a naturally dry climate anyway, and always plant new roses with the water crystals to help short-term survival. Yep, mori1 - I was watering even into December too, and my neighbors have long since stopped trying to figure me out in the garden. It's just that watering isn't fun, and a large part of why I don't spray is that it isn't fun either (though I like to believe health principles factor in as well as laziness). Harmonyp hit it right on the nose, in what I was getting across with all the wingeing. Gardening is one of my few "me" things, and the only one besides exercise I "have" to do enough to carve out time for it. I work more than full time and have kids and my husband and other responsibilities, so I rely on the garden for that extra boost of sanity and strength to balance me out with faith and family. This garden year was just plain depressing non-stop, and I didn't even want to sort pictures of better years to post since it so wasn't reality for now. It's reassuring though discouraging to hear the same from others like seil and bustopher and mori1 that have had the same kind of year in the midwest. Even though things sort of grew and stayed alive, nothing thrived - 25 tomato plants and maybe 25 tomatoes total for the summer, fewer potatoes out than I planted, well established blueberry bushes dying.

Seil, I agree that roses are tougher than we fear they'll be and that if I can keep even the crowns alive they'll come back in the spring. We know that well in our zone 5-6 winters, and we're used to pruning the puppies down to little nubs in the spring. It's just that the poor things were so stressed already by the limited water, with the freeze added to it. Even with the mulch and crystals and weekly deep watering enough to keep them mostly green, their root systems were stressed. Still - it is what it is, and we'll see what happens in the spring. After all these years, I know that a rose dying is an opportunity to plant a different rose, and I certainly haven't stopped buying roses for spring.

Lucille, Kitty, Melissa - I know you have your share of challenges in your year-round warm zone in different ways, so I appreciate your sympathies. And Jeri, don't you dare stop complaining about your drought or I'm going to feel like a real whiner. Tough conditions are tough, even if it could always be worse elsewhere.

Thanks again
Cynthia

After 30 years of trying to grow roses in Connecticut we finally moved to Pasadena CA. We had around 300 roses on which I spent at least 20 hours a week from May to September. I think I know everything there is to know about growing roses in Z6b Connecticut. You need fantastic soil, a good watering system and you have to know how to spray. And yet there were things you could do nothing about like deer and voles, japonese and oriental beetles and having heavy rain wipe out your flush almost every year. I'm glad to put it behind me and I wish you all well. In the end I think all that work is worth it.

Cynthia-- I get your disappointment (as you might be able to tell, I am originally from Cleveland) but live in KC now. My house is 95 years old and for the first time, the earth shifted because it was so dry. $8,000 in foundation repair. So you can imagine what it did to my beloved roses.

Like you, I have a career, a husband, two large dogs, a household to manage... and 13 roses to obsess over! But I like to look at this weather like a challenge! Your roses need you and you should take pride in the fact that you are successfully gardening in one of the most challenging climates in the United States! That is totally impressive.

I can relate to wanting to join in on the gloating/bragging like others here do (referring to you lucky Californians and coastal rosy friends!)... And I can join in, but with a modified gloating. Any photo that I post doesn't include the bush portion because its usually too piddly (not worth boasting about but instead is a close up of the rose itself (ya gotta show it off!) . :-)

So, chin up! You live in "the good life" state!

Ah, yes - "Nebraska, the Good Life"! Displaced Clevelander reminds me that we're an entire state of optimists (by necessity I suspect), since that's now what's on our license plates and "Welcome to Nebraska" signs, for those of you who've driven through Nebraska (probably on the way to Colorado). Sure beats "The Beef State" of many years ago. Youch, $8000 in foundation repairs is no joke, and if this drought continues you may need to make sure to water your foundation through the summer. Another friend had basement cracks because of soil pulling away this fall.

And yes, Henry - nature always has something to throw at us to challenge our gardening, and I'm grateful Japanese beetles haven't made it quite this far west though a fellow GWer in Omaha has them rather bad. At least drought isn't totally disgusting! You remind me of another benefit of gardening in Nebraska - we start out with pretty good loamy clay soil and mine has gotten better over years of organic material. I have total sympathies with the folks who talk about hacking holes in their yard for roses with a pick and shovel. For me, if it takes me more than three easy shovel fulls to fill a 10-gallon bucket I'm either wimping out or it hasn't rained in too long.
All reasons to be optimistic again this year!

Cynthia