We have almost similar posts going right now. I had some breakage, but my worst problem has been the dying of the canes, canker, or whatever else it is called. The can may look nice, then have a big purple and red mark down the cane. Also it may be almost all dark red. The third symptom is that there are multiple spotches of red going down the cane. I am cutting them all back. It feels awful, but for the most part I know these will not grow successfully.

When I first examined my garden after signs of growth,
I was optimistic by seeing all of the first sprouts. However, most of them were on bad wood.

I hope your worst problem is the breakage, and not the badly damaged canes.

Good luck,
Sammy

Plenty of damage here too; in fact I've been thinking about posting about what a bad winter we've had. Lots of spotted canes like Sammy describes, lots of frozen canes, quite a bit of breakage from the weight of the snow. We had a warm fall through November followed by an abrupt hard freeze in early December. I think this was what did the bulk of the damage: I've never seen so many canes killed, with one two year old Tea frozen to the ground. A very dark, evenly cold, very humid winter followed, with snow on the ground (and plants) for weeks, and then after a couple of weeks of mild weather in late February-early March, we had a two-day snowstorm. This last was, I think, the coup de grace for some relatively tender shrubs that had survived until that point. I don't know how much snow fell, but we had five-foot snowdrifts on our property.
March is an ugly month here any year, because it's when the evergreen roses drop their old foliage; but this year is dismaying beyond measure. I'm still pruning off dead canes as the rest of the snow melts; spring growth is behind schedule since it has so recently been winter. Worst of all, we have a major ground slump through the big garden, and I don't know what to do about it. Plant trees, of course, but they need time to dig their roots in really well.
I'll cheer up in time; and I certainly hope it's soon.
Melissa

We had a big snow (for us) and the sudden weight on roses not accustomed to it took out many, many, canes. I lost big huge canes that accounted for 1/3 of many of my teas.
I cut them out as soon as the snow melted. I think they'll rebound since I caught them quickly.

Another Maryland gardner here! I don't own any roses, though those at my parent's house in New Jersey pulled through okay... I guess the question is how many good canes the plants still have vs. how many were lost: I hope none of them are now "one cane wonders" after this crushing winter.

The evergreens took the worst of the beating from what I've seen in my area: crushed yew bushes, etc.

My roses are usually grow big, so I have A LOT of breakage, especially on some of my Teas. I will need to prune my Lady Hillingdon, Safrano and Mrs B R Cant as if they were HTs, due to breakage.
This is going to be quite an experience, each one of these roses was 8-10 feet in every direction, they will be cut to 8-20 inches hights, all major canes are completely broken.
Olga

This area in Pa had a lot of evergreen damage----many large branches broken off.

Florence

We had tons of snow here which helped protect my roses, but also caused some breakage. My new Quietness roses all got some breakage. I think they will spring back though.

I have broken canes from snow load every year...this year, not as bad as some. It's sad, I know, but prune them back and they should be fine. Oath5, feeding your roses to help them come back from damage (esp. with "well rotted manure") is never a bad idea. Go ahead.

I had quite a bit of breakage in my garden, but everything should bounce back by bloom time. Many of my roses are still small so I didn't suffer any heartbreaking losses.

I very foolishly planted many band-sized roses late in the season last year but so far they all look well. I will worry if we get some late, prolonged frosts though.

I am worried about canker as I do notice lots of reddish canes. But the canes on all my roses are various colors so I am unsure whether or not I have a disaster area on my hands.

Some breakage here in z8 SoCal mtns due mostly due to a 4' dump, no cane die back that I can see. I took it as an opportunity on some to start more bushes (knock wood)!

The worst damage was Marie Pavie (blunt force trauma to bottom by DH and rake resulting in separation of the top from the bottom) and Sharifa Asma or Gruss an Auchen, dunno which, same injury by dog doing zoomies up & down fence line with neighbor dog. I have started them as well, hope I get at least one replacement!

So sorry to hear about the breakage. Some of mine are down to one inch due to breakage. I have two questions please:
do I prune beneath the breakage now or wait in case we have a late freeze?
Any point in trying to root (out of patent) the stems that have broken?
Thank you

"Any point in trying to root (out of patent) the stems that have broken? "

Replacement, spares, friends, charity raffles...

I would love to root them, but since they are broken - what are the chances that they will root pls?

Well, I guess the crux of the matter is if they are still green and not dried out. I caught the ones that were murdered pretty soon and the ones broken by snow didn't dry out in the snow, so I was able to retrieve green shoots after the snow melted, bear in mind it's also beem reasonably cold there until this week with highs not much more than 40deg so that helped, too.

If you have green slips, cut off the bottom to near a bud. Trim to size, if you use the ziplock bag method, whatever will fit in the bag - I put a bag-sized bamboo bbq skewer in the bag to hold it up. Instead of loose soil you can use peat plugs or pots. Rooting hormone can also be used, I think a lot of us prefer the liquid brand. Then wait until you see roots or rot, what a difference an 'o' makes, eh? ;-)

You can also use band pots, etc. But, if you don't have a mister, having a plastic cover over them is key so the soil doesn't dry out and germinal root tissue has water to look for.

For more info, Paul Barden has the bag method and many others:
Paul Barden: Old Garden Roses and beyond
http://www.rdrop.com/~paul/propagation.html

AConnie at Hartwood has an interesting method using milk and soda bottles:
Hartwood Roses - Rooting Roses
http://www.hartwoodroses.com/Articles/rootingroses.php

As for your chances, well, some root better than others, but it's like winning the Lotto, you can't win if you don't play, right? ;-)

do I prune beneath the breakage now or wait in case we have a late freeze?
Try to be analytical about it.
Where a stem emerges from either a larger stem or the bud union, there are closely spaced leaf bud eyes...from when that stem first emerged. Those bud eyes get farther apart as the stem grew longer. THOSE eyes are very important as they are where new stems (aka laterals) are most likely to emerge.
So, the more of them you can leave on a bush-under a neatly cut off surface, the better your odds on getting new basals from what's left of that cane.
The neatly cut off surface is also important, because you don't want a ragged surface that would hold water (and fungal spores) and be a source of rot.

I got a lot of breakage here too. But the snow cover seemed to reduce die-back from cold. Bushes will be smaller and less full this year.