Yes, Ken, it's fairly alarming. I was getting ready to send some branches off for budding today when I realized that a lot of them were already breaking into leaf. One serious cold snap and I may have a real problem; one serious ice storm and I'm looking at a horticultural apocalypse.

Regardless of any premature bud swelling or leafing out due to the warmer winter, I'll wait until late March/early april as usual. Been burned and have responded to other that have been burned too many times. Have never been hurt by waiting. Roses always bloom at their usual time.

Good luck to all you who won't wait and want advice after a sudden cold snap.

I'm going with Karl. I was burnt badly by that late April freeze in 2007 and lost 37 roses. It was heart breaking to dig out all those roses and very expensive to replace them. I'll leave mine on until the night time temps are consistently above freezing and take my chances with the canker.

All it takes is that jet stream to move just a fraction and the arctic air that's being held up north will come surging down. Like Karl, I've been bit more then once. Our weatherman said today that yesterday in 1923 the temperature during the day was 79. That night an artic front moved through and the temperature plummeted to -15. That's a 100 degree drop in one day and a record setter. In Oklahoma at least one just prays alot in late winter/early spring and prunes very lightly if it can't be avoided before the "usual" prune date. You can always go back and cut more... Good luck to you Ken....Maryl

We always get a false spring about this time of year, too, in the mountains of northern California. The buds swell. The roses start leafing out and then winter comes back to complete it's cycle.

As long as your mulch is not touching the wood of the roses, you don't really need to worry about it being wet and causing disease. We got 49" of rain last year and that is the only precaution I took.

Karl is right about waiting to prune. I have followed the old "wait for the forsythia to bloom" rule for several years and everything has worked out just fine.

Smiles,

It's hard to know what to do, but our pruning or not pruning probably won't make a huge difference, provided we don't prune severely.

It's almost certain that Ken and the rest of us in the East will have hard freezes in February and early March. My practice is to prune by the calendar. My reasoning is that the upper canes contain stored energy that will help to feed the premature growth that is going to be lost. If I prune early and severely, then growth buds and energy that will be lost come from lower on the plant.

The one thing I'm doing this year is what I should have done the year we got that horrid late Easter Freeze: I will have, on hand, a nozzle for my hoses that sprays a very fine mist. That way, if a severe freeze is forecast, I will be out spraying a coating of water to freeze over the more freeze susceptible roses. I will make sure that the lower eighteen inches are protected.

I also spend time on weather underground looking at their almanac and history info for max and min temperatures through time. We've just passed the historic no-more-below-zero-Fahrenheit nights threshold.

If you haven't used the wunderground almanac pages for multiple weather sites in your area, looking there is worth a couple of hours of your time.

I think I'll stay with Ann & Michael, since they're my closest neighbors, and just do everything around the end of March as usual. Although, I'm tempted to bring some of my potted roses out from hibernation, I'll have to think on that one a bit longer...
~Tammy

I used the leaf blower, and dug up a rose bed that I want to change. Even though my roses are waking up, I won't touch them until the middle of March -- my spring break. At that time I trim, but do not really ever make drastic cuts.

Now the grasses and crape myrtles are a different story. This is a great time to cut them. Also I have 20 pots for tomatoes that I can prepare.

I have many many gardening chores, but I am not ready to touch my roses.

Sammy

well we have been hit by a vicious easterly, after a winter of mild west winds, so I am doing nothing except reading - the ground is solid, the pots are frozen, not even a kindly mulch of snow, just cold, cold, cold. Yep, I did chicken out and move last years rose cuttings into the greenhouse (where I keep a couple of storm lights on the go to stop the total freeze). This happens at some point every year. Nothing to do except make the best of the down time.

Well I posted a photo last December with a blooming forsythia bush at my grandmas house.....I have new growth from top to bottom and my Audie Murphy still has all its leaves.....my climbers are starting to fill out nicely. In south GA ya never know, but I started trimming already just to make myself feel better. I hate cutting off all the new growth and can see how I might get tempted to leave some of it there and not prune if I wait too long. I also expect roses in about 6 weeks on some plants......usually we would pruned in about 1o days but I started doing it last week. All winter we had two hard freezes total....had roses until the beginning of January.

We have had almost no winter this yr.. It's been in the 60* and 70* many days... My roses have tiny leaves and my McCartney rose is still very green--only lost a few leaves all winter! I will wait until the dogwoods are blooming before I start pruning..