I don't know how other's feel, but I live in the same zone as you (Maine and Kansas both zone 5b...curious) and the Rose Society that I belong to here always recommends waiting until Mid-April. I have grandiflora and shrub roses. It's been difficult for me to hold off since the last couple days have been in the 60's, but today we got hit with cold temps and 4" of snow!!! My neighbor couldn't wait either & insisted on pruning her roses last week. I'm curious to see how well they did when the snow melts. I'm still going to wait a bit longer. If you're sure of the forecast, maybe you'll be fine pruning now.

I would imagine you could prune dead canes and tips at any time and not hurt anything. But I live in southern California so what do I know?

Ingrid

Start with the OGRs, specifically any once-bloomers you have. After that, move on to the dead and broken. Then do them in hardiness order.

BTW, my early forsythia has started to bloom. It's usually about a week ahead of the Lynwood Gold type.

I would like to do the same. Mine are seriously budding out, too. I know I risk encouraging new tender growth and a expenditure of energy that may easily be killed by a late spring storm...but what the heck. Think I'll experiment!

I too live in Kansas and have learn to wait until after tax day. The last two days were tempting me to prune but staring at the snow that now covers my crocus. Makes me glad I resisted the urge.

I just did mine today too. Loads of buds on them. Hope all will go well... It's just too beautiful out!

Oh I can't decide. I'm not worried about my OGRs. It's the Austins that I don't want to encourage new growth, although they already are putting out some growth anyway. As of now, they're going to get put off at least another day. I spent the whole day edging beds. At least I got that done. I just hate waiting til mid April. There's SO much to do by then, and all this pruning of winterkill takes SO long, it would be great to get a head start.

I think I'll start gradually over the next week if we have more warm weather.

Cutting dead wood out probably would not hurt anyway, since it won't get alive no matter what weather. With the rest though it is always a gamble in colder zones, since you can't really predict if there gonna be late frosts or not.

I feel the same way about all the work. I'd rather get a start because in April there is just sooooo much to do! I did start a little bit of clean up of some of my beds but most will remain for a time. Time will tell if it was a wise move on my part or a really bad one! But, boy I was so happy to see that my Westerland hasn't missed a beat. There are so many tiny nubs or buds all the way up the cane. I did take the time to retie to the trellis. Maria Stern should be ok anyways as she is supposed to be relatively hardy anyway. William Baffin even has nubs all down his canes (all were just planted last year, so not too much in the way of main canes yet). Hopefully, this year will see much more growth on all.
One weird thing on Maria Stern is that all of her canes look healthy, but they are like a purpley/wine color and that must be from cold of winter.

We get this question each year after a few warm days. My advice is always to wait.
I realize most won't heed the advice and those usually are the ones who frantically write requesting help with late freeze damage.
My roses are showing swollen buds with some bushes showing leaves. I wear blinders and concentrate on trandplanting and cleaning up the yard. I'll start my pruning after April 1, if the weather cooperates

I've been moving around roses to reduce crowding--so far I've moved 21 roses and planted 6 new ones this season.

I live in such a strange area that if I prune I will be cutting off all new growth and buds. Any rose that I can prune after it blooms, which I've done with some Austins, I will use that method this year. I hate to prune off so much growth!

Carla

Well, I decided (after viewing the weather forcasts) to recover at least the crowns of two of them. Hopefully this will help ward off anything happening to them. I also hope that my idea of using my pine mulch to recover them wasn't a mistake. They had been covered with oak leaves and straw. Well, I left the oak leaves of course, but I did take off the top layer that was all straw and replaced with the pine mulch. I also kept my covers of burlap just in case...

Carla, how we prune in the north after winter: cut as far down the cane to the point where you have live cane vs. dead cane (winterkilled). This is sometimes tricky because a cane might start putting buds out, only to die later because it really wasn't viable. So pruning too early, you're not really sure how far down to go. Some canes that right now look downright dead may spring back to life. Some canes that look ok will be dead next month. Many roses we have to end up pruning all the way to almost ground level, which makes for a LOT of cutting and hauling away of brush. I'ts a workout.

I really enjoy my OGRs and a few of my hardier roses as they only need little "trims". That must be what it's like to prune in the south.

I've been busy removing all the leaves around the roses--also any weeds I spot. This way they won't rot and form a soggy mess around the roses.

Time is the critical factor. When you're working long hours at the office, you just don't have much. So you squeeze in the garden chores when you can. I pruned a lot this weekend. I actually started a few weeks ago.

Most of the chores in the beds are a heck of a lot easier when that 6' thorny monster is cut down to 18".

Many of my roses are leafing out. I think the plants will waste a lot of energy leafing out over 4 feet of cane I plan to remove. Is this somehow better/worse than wasting energy recovering from a late frost?

Not scientific. Just my experience.

I think it depends on how the plant leafs out. If a plant has bare legs--dormant buds--it makes a lot of sense to wait. If there is a late frost, these buds are ready to go as soon as you clip off the tops. But, if you have a climber which is already sending out laterals all along the cane, from top to bottom, there isn't much to be gained by waiting.

Sounds to me like you could start early if you so choose. Of course here in southeast Georgia, our climactic situations are much different then yours. We prune on or about Valentine's Day, so we are budding out right now. Our winter here was much colder then normal, but as near as I can tell, no damage was done. Hope you have a great blooming season.

In a cold zone where the days can be warm and the evenings still often below freezing, the climate is largely going to dictate what the roses will do breaking dormancy and growth wise and not the pruning. I wouldn't be too worried about pruning now as the advice and caution's related to early pruning is based on more temperate climates where the roses can break dormancy really fast and put on substantial growth. Our roses break dormancy a lot slower because of the colder evening temps...

However, if you are concerned, Mad Gallica's advice is solid. Start with OGR's, dead and broken cane and then go prune based on most hardy to least hardy.

I've already done about 60% of my pruning here and traditionally am finished by no later than mid-April. There will always be a little more pruning to be done later due to weather changes or some cane not actually being viable.

It's awesome to read such fine advice!
Steve.