PATIENCE. Someone who lives in your zone will better be able to respond, but if they were mine I would wait to see what they do in a few months - if they are alive, they will sprout. If not, not.

Jackie

It's just cane dieback. I'd leave em be, and keep the mulch around them until you're definitely in the clear regarding winter.

Like Jackie said, wait until they sprout. Also note the color of the green on the canes. If it becomes a dull green slightly to the blue or gray or if they shrivel, it is a sign of impending doom. But even then it is a waiting game. Do not give up hope until the canes turn tan/brown and the roots are black and limp because roses can regenerate from the "roots" (actually it is the crown) even if all canes are dead. I know that we did not sign up for a spectator sport but sometimes that is what it is. The gardener's watchwords are hope and patience.

Cath

I'd just keep them properly protected and watered. I've had things resurrect on me I had long since thrown in the towel over. From being eaten to the ground by vermin to hail damage to being fried by the heat. If there is any life left in the roots, given the opportunity, many will come back to spite you. Kind of reminds me of a favorite Beth Nielsen Chapman song, "Life holds on, given the slightest chance. For the weak and the strong, life holds on." It can't really cost you anything to wait, other than time, and it COULD save you some money and teach you a lesson worth the cost. Kim

I get that waiting is the only way to *really* know. But what I'm worried about is availability from nurseries if many of us have lost teas and want to buy more to replace them. It's already bad timing to order them right now and if it gets much worse because of demand will I be stuck having to replace them in 2015 instead of this year? It's not like I was the only one with an unusually harsh winter. (But then I don't know much about the nursery business and how they manage supply and demand!)

IF the ones that are black (yes, black not brown) all the way to the roots are most likely not to come back I don't mind risking the funds to get them replaced while I can still find replacements for this year. If there is still a really good chance that an unestablished rose can take that much damage and recover I'm happy to wait. I'm just a little clueless as to what the outcome is most likely to be.

I have 40 acres so even though I'm trying to avoid having a gazillion roses it's not like I have a space problem and it would be such a hardship to have extra roses. ;-)

Anyone want to lay some odds out for me? :-D

Kim, BNC is a favorite of mine too! I got to see her perform at The Bluebird years ago and it was such a treat...

This post was edited by subk3 on Sun, Feb 16, 14 at 16:51

Having lost roses in zone 4 to winter weather, I can tell you that you can prune black (yes, black) canes right to the ground - or even below, and as long as there is some green left down there the rose can re-grow. (That's the reason for planting the crown of the rose a few inches under the soil in colder zones.) Whatever you do, do NOT pull the mulch away from whatever green canes you have left - keep them protected until you're positive that winter is over. They'll begin to sprout new growth when it is time and you can prune away all the dead canes at that time. Our late friend, Rosenut, used to say something to the effect of 'relax and stay out of the garden until spring; you'll just drive yourself crazy looking at blackened canes and there is nothing you can do until pruning time anyway!'
That said, I understand your inclination to order replacements right away. IME, usually a rose survives a severe freeze and extreme pruning. But you have to do what you feel you have to do if you don't think you can live without a particular rose for even one season.

I wouldn't overthink the reordering. The only part of the country that has really gotten notable cold is the upper midwest - not exactly a hot bed of tea growing. The east is cold only in comparison to the tropical temperatures of the last few years. To top it off, one of the places teas are grown, California, may be buying a lot fewer plants.

I won't give you any odds, but I wouldn't write off anything, even those black canes. We had an awful cold snap last April that followed a nasty January. I had a few roses that had black canes--one in particularly, Caramel Antike ( Kordes florist rose) that was ALL black. I don't like this rose, so in May I took my shovel down to where it grew, and as I readied the shovel for its first plunge in the dirt, I noticed That CA was turning green! I don't know if it lost any cane, but it sure wasn't dead. In fact, bad though they can look, I've never lost a rose to the cold. Be patient and optimistic. I think things will turn out better than you expect. Diane

Since you said these were bands I'm assuming they were all own root roses so you'll have to wait a good long while before deciding if they're really dead or not. I have a lot of own root minis that sometimes need to be pruned right to the soil in the spring but for the most part they just grow right back from the roots. I learned the hard way to NOT give up too soon though. Sometimes it's a month or more after everything else has budded out that I see those first new canes poking up out the soil.

I know it's hard to be patient while we are in the middle of a really miserable winter, but it's what you have to do. Your roses' status right now may not be what they will be at the end of winter, because we aren't finished with cold weather, snow, ice, etc., just yet.

My first year with Teas ... I planted a dozen in the bed that forms my Rambler Fence, to compliment the green background that the ramblers are after they finish flowering for the season. In October or November of that year, I found out quite abruptly that this bed is directly at the end of a swale in the yard and, as a result, forms a very nice frost pocket. That winter, I lost three or four of the Teas, and a few others in different parts of the garden. The ones that survived have been going like gang-busters ever since. I never bothered to replace the ones that died, figuring that they were probably less suited to my climate. Besides, there are a LOT more out there that I wanted to try, and the death of the original ones provided space for new varieties.

Rose gardening, and gardening in general, is mostly growing and observing plants in your garden and under your care. What happens in other people's gardens may or may not apply.

Based on twelve years of growing teas in East Tennessee (6b), I can report that this is the meanest cold in those years. We had three periods of four or more days when highs were 20F or less. I had visions of ice crystals destroying rose vascular systems.

So far, that hasn't happened.

What to look for. Don't look down near the base first. Look out on stems. The new buds are just today beginning to swell. By Thursday or Friday (in these parts) the swelling will be more pronounced. We won't keep all our stems, but we will keep some.

Look at the roses from the north side as well as the south. South sides are already showing sunburn and many aren't green, even though their north sides are.

By Friday (we expect temps around 60F as highs for the rest of this week) we may see more winter damage, not as dead but as canker growing. Today, on a classic poly, I saw the tell tale signs of active canker...not in the canker themselves but in the magenta purple discoloration that the canes take on when the canker is producing polyethylene gasses. On small stems, that has to be cut off. On tea roses, on mature two to four year old canes, the cane can survive (unlike wimpy HTs that allow the canker to gird them by midsummer).

Right now I can report that four nights with temps out in the garden that went down to below 5F, some stems survived on both teas and chinas.

That makes me very happy.

Based on twelve years of growing teas in East Tennessee (6b), I can report that this is the meanest cold in those years. We had three periods of four or more days when highs were 20F or less. I had visions of ice crystals destroying rose vascular systems.

So far, that hasn't happened.

What to look for. Don't look down near the base first. Look out on stems. The new buds are just today beginning to swell. By Thursday or Friday (in these parts) the swelling will be more pronounced. We won't keep all our stems, but we will keep some.

Look at the roses from the north side as well as the south. South sides are already showing sunburn and many aren't green, even though their north sides are.

By Friday (we expect temps around 60F as highs for the rest of this week) we may see more winter damage, not as dead but as canker growing. Today, on a classic poly, I saw the tell tale signs of active canker...not in the canker themselves but in the magenta purple discoloration that the canes take on when the canker is producing polyethylene gasses. On small stems, that has to be cut off. On tea roses, on mature two to four year old canes, the cane can survive (unlike wimpy HTs that allow the canker to gird them by midsummer).

Right now I can report that four nights with temps out in the garden that went down to below 5F, some stems survived on both teas and chinas.

That makes me very happy.

I am not an experienced rose grower like those who have responded with wise advice about being patient. My experience with plants in general tells me that waiting-and-seeing is the prudent course.

But since you just happened to mention that you have plenty of space for a few extra plants regardless of how your current plants do, I would certainly recommend hedging your bets by getting a few more. If you have the money and space, I will be your enabling cheerleader, and advise you to get a few more *just in case*... :>)

Good luck!