I just keep ordering! I have no idea where I will put the last six I have ordered. I know just how you feel. When I walk my garden, I do pick up the rose stems the rabbits have gnawed down! UGH! I will watch this post for some great ideas! Lesley

Hello artemis_mo, You can go to the grocery store and buy a mini rose that you like and then round up some pots and potting dirt. Then go to the link below to find out what to do next. Then this spring you'll have some nice minis to transplant into your garden. Or you can set yourself up a propagation unit and try to get some dormant cuttings to root. I don't know if it's even possible with roses but it works with a lot of plants.
Here are some web addresses to help you with that.
http://www.paulbardenroses.com/hulse.html
http://www.hartwoodroses.com/How-To/
That should keep you busy till Monday when you go back to work.
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Here is a link that might be useful: How to save a potted gift rose

That's why I put up my unheated greenhouse. I root cutting diring the summer and fall, then keep them alive through the holidays in a cold frame built in the greenhouse.
Now, with the days getting longer, I go out to the greenhouse, prune and repot my cuttings. The sun being higher in the sky means more heat inside the greenhouse so on sunny days I can do things in it. This lets me work in the dirt until the weatheer breaks. On sunny days it can get into the 80s in my greenhouse. By early March, I'm growing roses.

I'm glad I am not the only zone 5'er going crazy. I would love to bundle up and get to work. For now I just walk around and evaluate my winter kill.. line up the barrows like Nascar...and wait for the first sign of spring...THE UPS MAN..
Can we cut off the black tips??? Please????

Here's another thing for you to do, MAKE YOUR POSTS MORE INTERESTING WITH HTML.
THIS WILL TELL YOU HOW TO DO IT:"LINK TO HTML TUTORIAL"
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I live in southern Ca. so the weather is mild here. I go out everyday and check on the progress of what is growing, its so amazing to see how much the roses grow in just one day. I have also been trying to propagate some rose cuttings so my dining room table is covered in soda bottles with clippings inside, everyday I inspect them to see if anything is growing. I have also been spending a lot of time on this website checking out all the photos on the photo gallery and dreaming of how I can improve my own yard, there are some beautiful pictures and it keeps me warm until spring.

You can come help me. Plenty to do here! ;^)

gymmom411, watch for fungus if you have your cuttings inside--it can be a little too warm for them in the house.

hoovb, thanks for the tip, this is my first year trying to grow cuttings, I'm sure it will be trial and error. I also have 3 outside in the barn and they seem to be doing well.

Hoov beat me to it -- I imagine your cuttings will have a better chance for success somewhere cooler than your house. When I did the soda bottle/milk jug method, mine were kept under lights in my unheated basement at about 55 - 60 degrees.

Karl, having a greenhouse ROCKS! Mine (heated) is full of cuttings under mist, rooted cuttings in small pots, and smaller potted roses from last year that I felt uncomfortable leaving out for the winter. Having this little place to piddle in the 'garden' during the winter has helped a lot with my winter boredom. There are cuttings to inspect, pots to water, aphids to kill .... a whole world of stuff to do.

In the garden, weather permitting, I have been trying to time some of my non-plant related jobs. We repaired the fence in the front yard where the Van Fleet ramblers will live, I have been taking advantage of the soft winter ground by pounding pieces of pipe to sleeve the double arches in the rose field, and I've been doing a lot of scheming on graph paper for additions and enhancements to the current plan.

When all else fails, you can try to grow roses from seed in your basement. I have about a dozen Maid Marion OP seeds that sprouted this past week.

We have to get creative in winter. All this will be forgotten in late spring, when we can get back to real gardening.

Connie

Artemis, I can really relate to what you are saying! My roses are under a thick layer of snow and I can't even move through the garden easily because of deep snow. I've been busy redoing my garden 'blueprints', showing where everything is planted - even doing them on traceable paper so I can have a spring one, summer one and fall one (to keep me from accidently digging up bulbs when their foliage is gone and making sure I have color for at least 3 seasons). I've done rose and plant inventory lists with columns for year purchased, bloom time, disease resistance, etc. It's pretty OCD, but it gives me a sense of being a gardener even when I can't garden. The other thing that keeps me from going over the edge in March and early April when it's still difficult or impossible to work in the garden is starting seeds inside. My husband built me a 5 shelf light table and I begin growing perennial seeds under lights in early March, gradually planting more things according to their germination and maturation times. It's so wonderful to see things sprouting and growing when there's still cold and snow outside. Helps with cabin fever!

Okay. Generator, I'm too ADHD to work with HTML. Others...no greenhouse possible here. What about spraying lime sulphur now? Cutting out black canes? Stripping off dead leaves? I will do more harm than good unless I get some direction here! Susan...I hear you!

Artemis, here's my take on pruning in mid-February in zone 5. Pruning dead wood now has two drawbacks, 1) you will almost certainly have to prune again this spring and 2) pruning does tend to stimulate new growth. Losing the new growth to later cold is no big deal but the actively growing plant might suffer even more cold damage. Even so, If you cut back only the clearly black portion of the canes, I don't think you'll do any harm. I view stripping dead leaves as just busy work but I can't see any harm in it.

Thanks Mike. I needed to hear that! I will stay put and try and do no harm. I am clearly over anxious.

We lost all of our snow cover this last week.
I went out on a warm 35 deg day and wrote down the names of all my roses,then went back outside to write down a few more I missed.
I don't have a "Blue Print" I dug out and donated so many to the neighbors I can't remember any more.
The only pruning I do is after april 15th by then I feel that we will be free of winter kill.
During the year I prune out all the weak little twiggy things growing on the insides of the bushes I think they are just energy suckers.
This time of year I am always on the look out for more spots to put roses.

Stanc

You can come up and help me pick up sticks. Many, many sticks. An entire winter's worth of tree debris.

When you are done with that, you can play with flagstone. It gets chiseled out of the hole in the back, hauled to the other side of the backyard, and laid on crushed stone.

Or you can do what I'm doing - staying inside and doing laundry, and working on nifty keeno ways to move 300 lb planters around. I'm not at all sure it can be done without a Bobcat. I was told it takes four men and a Bobcat, and I believe it. It would be nice if it was possible with a garden tractor and cart, but I'm just not seeing it.

Artemis, here is a little spring fix for you. Note the grocery store mini.{{gwi:231377}}

Thank you Susan. It's a good thing the nurseries don't have any roses for sale! I may have to go to the grocery store though!

Artemis, I couldn't take the exile any longer either. Today (the sun was shining) I bundled up in my warmest winter coat and mittens and went out to bag some leaves that always blow over to one area in my garden--about 3 times more leaves than any of the roses there need for protection. After bagging up the top layer of those leaves, I removed turf from one end of a rose bed I want to extend. Then I took 3 sticks and drew a circle where each new rose will go and stuck the sticks in the centers of those circles. Very satisfying. Although I still have deep digging to do there, I can look out my kitchen window and see the sticks--and imagine how the new roses will look there.

Nothing very glamorous, but it sure was fun messing in my gardens again--even in my parka and mittens.

Kate

Another thing to do, not as exciting as playing with roses but a good way to spend these last days of winter is taking care of your tools. Take your pruners apart, clean, oil and sharpen them. Same for your loppers and even your shovels. Survey your tagging system if you use one and see which tags need replacing...or start one if you've been meaning to do it. Draw a garden map and label your roses. (This can get you thinking about what you can still fit in or replace with new roses this spring.) Check your chemicals if you use them and order anything you're low on, including fertilizers for the upcoming season. Gather your material of choice for tying up roses whether it be old pantyhose or velcro tie strips. Get everything you need to start out this spring in one place so you know where it all is when you need it. Check your supply of sunscreen and find your best gardening hat. There is a lot to do as the sun gets warmer and the snow gradually fades away if you just stop and think about the tasks to come.
Oh, and something very important: if you've been a couch potato all winter, it's time to start exercising and doing stretches to limber up so you don't hurt so bad when the real work comes.

Now, I need to go and follow my own advice.
LOL

Lol, I see lots of us are going stir crazy here. I do rose seeds in the winter which helps. I also force bulbs just to have something green and living to putz with. Winter is also when I go through all of last seasons pictures and sort out the duds, size and post them to HMF. I try to stay away from catalogs because I get in too much trouble with those but when they show up in the mail you have to at least peak.

One thing that has helped me a lot is learning about winter sowing. This is starting seeds in containers and leaving them in enclosed containers outside; this eliminates damping off problems and hardens them. It sounds crazy, but it seems to be working. There is a winter sowing forum here on gardenweb that you can find easily, but here is another site that tells what it is.

My side area where a baby Reve d'Or lives is full of gallon milk containers sprouting all kinds of perennials and annuals. I have read that people in zone 3-4 also wintersow. It is really fun to do. I started gardening on January 1!!

Here is a link that might be useful: winter sowing

Artemis,
I feel your pain. Since I quit skiing, winter is a time of suffering here. In this area, we normally see some seasonal change by late February. Last weekend we had temps in the 50's and I had to find something to do. I chose to prune my larger trees and clean up branches which had fallen.

This weekend it was only up to the 40's, but I still put on my shorts and got out to cut the larger branches into firewood. The beds on the south side of the house are thawed so I did a little clean up. I shovel pruned midge champion Ingrid Bergmann. The soft ground also allows removal of some of the persistent weeds and grasses.

Of course, winter does not halt the required planning sessions. Although it may be too cold to hold a beer in your bare hands, heavy gardening gloves are specifically made for this activity. Poor DW can only shake her head at the sight of cabin-fevered husband sitting on the adirondack chair, in shorts, drinking his beer outdoors in February. The neighbors just pretend they don't see.

Harry, let me get a visual on this. Too funny!

Artemis, you can come help me rake leaves. Hate to get leaves up especially out of mulched beds. You could always read a rose book but that would make you want to order. Most years this is when I would go into an ordering frenzy with spring on the horizon. My heart would race and I would pour through rose vendors sites to see what I could order. Those days are over. Now I start earlier.

Carla

Yes, Carla...I started ordering last fall. Today I went outside and just started to dig. I made space for 2 more roses. Felt great.

I'm with Connie...I've had this little greenhouse since I moved into this property (over 10 years ago), but I hadn't started "using" it until this past summer. These pictures were taken yesterday. Just some of my cuttings and some of this season's seedlings.

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Robert

I second the idea for winter sowing. It has been lots of fun finding containers, etc., and doing that. I also did some seed starts on a window sill with a heat mat, and have a bunch of Veggies starting. I am also considering building a cold frame to get a head start.