Well, I've had many roses I thought were completely dead, only to have new canes come up in the spring. This happened with Madame Alfred Carrie twice, and quite often with Mutabilis. I have also been planting hardier roses-zone pushing was fun for a while, but I'm over it.
Hopefully, you did not lose as many as you thought.
I still have and love Gerbe Rose that you suggested I get years ago!
Alida

Hi Alida - Gerbe Rose and even MAC - have made it - I always worry about the latter and it is still a climber here - even if it froze to the ground about 8 years ago. And made it through the last 3 winters.

I know that some roses will bounce back even if frozen to the ground - but many roses had to do this the last 2 winters too and were veak - reduced to a few canes - And I suspect some that have survived - If I gave them time - will become one cane wonders .. and not the rose-bushes, they were 3-8 years ago.

Do you cover your roses at all?

I am in middle of Minn. and grow mostly Tea roses.
I used to just cover them with a foot to two feet of leaves but lost too many over the past ten years.

Then about four years ago I found an old car cover that was not used and put it over the roses and then put leaves over that.
Survival rate jumped up considerably and the roses were far more reading to go in the spring that without the cover.

As unhooking the cover from the trimmed rose bushes was a pain in the buttocks and the rose thorns pretty much sliced and diced it in four years I have now started burying the roses, with a cover over the ground, but then I have to put them in the ground before a killing frost that kill many bad germs.

I buriied them one year after the ground froze in a sleet storm and NEVER again.

I use Serenade for black spot but may go back to just a cover and leaves, although taking the leaves off is far, far, far more simply when there are no rose bushes in the way.

I have uncovered the roses this year but they are still in the ground as one year the little woman said I should get the leaves off because it was too warm out they would be hurt.

So I did and we got a late hard freeze.
I lost two thirds of the, very healthy looking roses and the rest took a long time to regenerate after being trimmed.

I used to have four dozen roses in three gardens but now I am down to less than half that although I am going to add again this year.
I had stopped adding because we had a garden store here that was clearing house type place and I could add fifteen to twenty dollar roses for three to five bucks each.
I also had bought bare root roses from a place in Canada but as spendy as they were some specimens looked more like weeds than rose bushes and their back-orders got tiring.

I do cover some of the roses I know to be less hardy - I mound some sand at the base of the roses and cower the base with fir canes, leaves and burlap. I do however not winterize my roses as much as you guys in the upper Northern States ( I live in southern Scandinavia - Denmark). I may want to cover more roses at the end of this season - since replacing this many roses is frustrating and expensive. At least I get to try some new roses.

I recall many photos of your spectacular rose garden, cupshaped! I am sorry you lost so many.

However, with your amazing gardening and design talent, I know your yard will look quite beautiful, no matter what you plant.

I know what you mean, Cupshaped. The roses can take a hit now and then and bounce back, but several severe winters in a row can prove too much. You are absolutely correct that sometimes what grows back will be weak and spindly and never again achieve the growth the rose had before it was frozen down so badly. I find it is better in those cases to cut my losses and dig up what is left, replacing it with a new plant. I empathize with you, I really do.

Conversely, our winter here was an unbelievably mild one - I swear it was 2 zones warmer than it should have been, and before that we had the winter of 2010/11 which seemed one zone warmer. I am amazed at the healthy green cane all over the yard this spring (and it IS spring here already, when normally this is our late winter season.) As someone posted in another thread, we have to actually think when pruning this year instead of just lopping off all the brown or black canes at ground level! I have an American Pillar rambler that I got from Ann in TN back in 2005. It has 'survived' all these years, but had to be cut back to a foot tall every spring. Last season after the fairly mild winter, it put out a 9 foot cane. This spring that unprotected cane up on the arbor is green to the tip and putting out leaves all up and down. I can hardly wait to see what comes next! *But* I never forget that one "normal" winter here will knock it back down to one foot tall! Still, it's a new experience for me, and I must admit, one I could get used to.
Here's hoping that many of your roses survive and that the weather settles back into a more "normal" pattern.
Best wishes,
Anne

I've had very good results covering the roses with burlap late in the season--after a couple of hard frosts. The idea is not to keep the roses warm, but to keep them from waking up too early, as that early growth will be killed by the cold weather. Just burlap, nothing else--adding leaves or mulch just encourages fungal disease when the weather warms up. As a bonus I can still winterize the roses when mulch would be frozen solid and unusable.

Niels, I'm so sorry to hear about your roses. Hopefully, some that seem to be dead will rebound. Strange that such a short winter should push them over the edge, I guess it was the "straw that broke the camel's back", as they say.

I guess the optimist would suggest looking to the hardy ones that survived, you've still got many, many roses to bring you joy this season.

Take care,
robert

I am so sorry to hear of your losses Niels! My experiences north of you in central Sweden are much better. I probably lost my least hardy roses already in the winter of 2009/10 and the remaining 190 roses have fared well, so far. The winter isn't quite over yet in my parts. I never cover. I mean to cover some hybrid teas but never get round to it in time. Even my Secret Garden Musk Climber is quite green to the top on lower branches, it's my touchstone rose.

Sorry to hear about your beautiful roses.

Here in the Mudwest, we are holding our breaths until April 15th or so.
That is more than a month away, so I am not worring about it---kinda.

Doug

Good grief - that is a lot of roses to lose. My friend, Elemire, growing in the Netherlands also lost a lot (37, I think) too while mysteriously, I have only lost a couple of 1st year cuttings (Sommerwind and Francoise Juranville) although Holland and East Anglia are very similar. What is your soil, Niels? Why do you think they died? Like you, we had an insanely mild winter until 2 weeks of vicious freezing (-17C) - all my roses in pots, including the cuttings, (although I moved them into the greenhouse after the first week) were frozen solid for a fortnight but seem largely unscathed. Wind? heavy soil (mine is very sandy and pretty dry over this winter)? These are hard losses to bear - I truly hope a green spark remains - are you completely sured they are K'O'd? Poor you, I hope you are having a lush spring.

It is the risk we take when growing roses in colder climates - some winters will be harder than others and during most of the 0es - we have had very mild winters.

And yes Campanula - I am sure they are K'O'd - Many of the roses that are dead are 8-10 years old and have performed well and grown into good rosebushes - but became smaller and smaller after the last 2 hard winters since I had to prune a little harder than I was used to. Many roses - like the Austins Abraham Darby and Heritage - have most years had to be pruned down to about 3-4 inches ..but all bounced back during and was at 5-6 feet tall in the fall - but last year I noticed they did not bounce back as they used to ... and this year - I have no hope they will become decent rosebushes again. Most of my roses are grafted on multifloara rootstock - and the bud-union of most of the roses that look dead are dead and woody - with no red "Eyes" that will produce new shoots/canes and some have maybe 1 3-4 inch cane left with a little red shoot - showing that there is life - but I just know that they will not become the rosebushes they were and I need to replace them with new roseplants - and it will cost me a few thousand dollars - and a lot of work digging the dead roseplants up and planting new ones.

Hoovb - I really envy all that green cane I see in your garden :-) and thanks - it will take a few years now to bring my rosegarden back to a good state again.

Winters here are usually milder than in the Midwest - I know winters in Michigan and Iowa are colder than here - And rosegardeners like Doug and AnneCecillia learn the hard way which roses that are hardy enough to get through the winters - and which roses that needs more winter protection or have to be avoided.

It was the weeks with the coldsnap - that put most of Europe in the deepfreezer for 2-3 weeks with temps down to -19 C/ -2F - I hope your roses will look good Marianne and Doug - when you start the pruning soon.(Forsythia just about to bloom here and 19C/66F today. Most of my musk roses have actually survived quite well - but most Hybrid Teas, Chinas and many Austins are dead.

Originally I had quite heavy rich clay soil (sligthly acidic) with poor drainage - but I ammended the heavy soil with about 10-15 cm of coarse sand and gravel and 10 cm of compost - added Stone flour and gypsum and magnesium limestone -And deep tilled the beds and let them set before I planted roses - and I have added a good layer of compost/aged composted manure every year - so drainage is good and the soil really nice to work with after more than 10 years of - and the roses have done very well - but these cold winters have killed many roses.

Most of the roses I grow in large 10-18 gallon pots 35 Litres - 60 Litres - with good potting soil - have done well - just cowered with sand and burlap - I will use some of them as replacement for the dead roses. Just like you Robert I do grow some roses in large pots :-) and they are doing well. It also seems that most of the newer Austin have better hardiness than older Austins - Spirit of Freedom against a wall hardy to the tips - Claire Austin and Princess Alexandra of Kent - all nice and green too.

I am grateful that I still have many roses left that are slowly beginning to leaf out and I am busy pruning and placing markers on the roses that are not worth keeping- and needs to be replaced - But loosing this many roses - will make me look for hardier roses and winterize better - we learn all the time. I may need to use some "Fillers" - Dahlias and Flowers like very fragrant Nicotiana, Foxgloves and sweetpeas in some spots - and enjoy the wait for the roses to start blooming :-)

I'm really surprised that you had such severe losses. I've uncovered all of mine now and, as far as I can see, the only ones I lost are 3 minis that the rabbits ate to the ground. Even those may yet come back because they're all own root. It still so very early in the year that I would wait a while and see if some of those don't surprise you and come back anyway.

Niels, I'm really sorry to hear about your losses. I know that you sold cut roses so that makes it an even greater loss. I hope some of those roses at least survived. Your garden was so beautiful, and I know from my own experience that roses need to grow a few years before looking garden-worthy. Companion plants that grow more quickly than roses can really give structure to a garden while you're waiting for the roses to come to maturity. Good luck to you in getting your garden back into shape. I hope by summer you'll have a better idea of what has survived, and perhaps you'll have some pleasant surprises.

Ingrid

What a devastating loss, Niels. So much of our heart and effort go into our gardens, that losing so many causes real pain. Not to mention the expense of starting again. But you are such a fine gardener, that you'll continue on. The loss is just hard. I am so sorry.

Thanks RpR, for informing us about the success of an old car cover, then leaves on top. Thank you, Zack_lau, about burlap over roses, rather than leaves. You are right about fungal diseases with wet leaves. I did that in my last house, 15 years ago, full sun, with a bed of hybrid teas and wet maple leaves - their stems turned black in the spring.

Hi Niels: I'm so sad by the loss of your beautiful roses. My zone is 5a, lowest temp. is -20 Fahrenheit, or -28.8 Celcius. The wind here in Chicagoland is strong and it gets colder. My Eglantyne in a windy location died this winter. No regrets, since it came in the mail last summer with blackspot and spider mites. My other 9 Austins survived their first, and warmest winter.

The only one with canker and black-stem is Wise Portia. It was green to the tip until February, when I gave it left-over acidic water, after watering my azaleas and rhododrendrons. It wilted right after that lemon-rind water. I protected all my roses by mounding soil on top (my soil is alkaline heavy clay, which discourages fungal infection). Next winter, I'll do the easier way by mounding free mulch on top.

Pickering Nusery in Canada specified NOT TO USE horse manure as winter-protection, since multiflora rootstock hates alkalinity. I did that as an experiment, mixing some horse manure into the soil for winter-protection. Golden Celebration didn't mind, but Mary Rose hated that. I won't use horse manure this spring, to see if my own-root Austins continue their fungal-free trend.

You probably already do, but I take every leaf off of my roses whether buried or not and soak each one with a heavy dose of Serenade shortly before I put them to bed.

Disease in the spring has not been a problem for me ever- so far-- but I also take a wet-dry vacuum out and suck up as many leaves as i can without taking too much mulch.
The newly dropped leaves come up much easier than trying to suck up the ones that have been there all summmer.
That is also one reason I give each rose about half a gallon soaking so what ever is on the ground is drenched.

As I can no longer afford Eucalyptus, I now have been using Cocoa bean hulls and they work well controling weeds and keeping the soil moist, plus they smell nice.

I made an incredibly stupid move with the Eucalyptus about five or so years ago.
I had access to a wholesale yard, and they offered me eight pallets of Eucalyptus for a dollar a bag.
I did not think I would use it up as quick as I did, I had over a pallet and worried about getting it home and where I would put it so I did not take it.
I can describe that action in one word--MORON!

Snooze and lose.

Aw, sorry Cupshaped...I remember years back having a very bad winter (school was even called off because it was too cold) and I lost almost every single rose. I just walked back inside and cried. But, I did order again, discovered new roses, I guess it's one of those things that's always in the back of our heads, that we could lose them...Im sure your garden will be looking great soon :)

I have plenty of regrets too, RpR, Niels, and Altorama. I'm looking at the neighbor's gorgeous Charles Jolly lilac bush, which I gave to him, since it almost drown in my wet clay bed. Eucalytus smells really nice - when I dusted off the 12 years old dried branches, I still can catch a nice whiff from the vase.

There are lots of good sale of pallets of landscape stuff in late fall, my hubby got a huge bag of peat moss for $1, broken bag - but still good. I learn to invest money in good soil, it stays there forever - versus the many iris that I lost in a wet spring, many bushes, and the many Hybrid teas that I lost years ago.