Having been the victim of severe early spring freezes several years ago, my roses had to undergo an equally severe pruning to get rid of damaged canes. Definitely cut them back about an inch below the black part. But check and see if the center of the cut area is a nice healthy white. If not, cut back more until you come to that clear white center. That well could be back to the soil line in some cases. However, new growth will depend on the rose having a healthy root system. If the rose does not have good roots, I would start looking around for the reason--eaten off by critters? poor drainage? burned roots from multi-chemical fertilizers like Bayer (any of those all-in-one, 3-in-one, etc., products). Newly planted roses should not be fed until they have produced significant growth in their new spot. Since you have already potted the rose, I'd guess the best you can do now is prune as I indicated above, water regularly, and keep it in semi-shade for about a month. Maybe it can be babied back to health. Good luck, Kate

Buford, The one time I'll go in and cut lowest is when the cane is mushy. This hasn't happened often, and I don't know what the disease is, but sometimes the cane has leaves that don't look good, and I'll wiggle it to see if it's broken and it's not broken, it's mushy. Then I will cut lowest possible, usually in stages and I follow the cleanliness regime that Cass recommends (sometimes with adding bleach in between cuts to the secateurs if I think the disease has a real lethal potential.) The cleanliness that Cass talks about is so important. About rugosas: We visited a garden Wednesday where we'd watched two beds that were primarily Pink Grootendorsts with a few interplanted forsythia. One bed is gone, replaced with grass. In the eight years we've watched these, only one plant had gotten Rose Rosette, and we'd pruned the sick canes off; that bush is still RRD-free. But with no care, another plant is a RRD mess now and forsythia is taking over. The remaining five Pink G's are mostly dead canes. In my part of the world, have have seen this dead cane thing on rugosas in my yard, I try to cut them back as far as possible and it makes a better looking rose. But I've seen some mass plantings of rugosas up in the mountains (clear zone 6 cold) and many of the rugosas are mostly similar dead canes. Down here, the rugosas aren't 'no care'. The cause? Sometimes you'll see a swelling on the canes. I've sent some of those to some plant pathologists who couldn't find any boring insects or other pathogen. I'm afraid we may learn more about rugosa diseases as northern Europeans consider ways to fight and kill rugosas which are becoming known in parts of Scandanavia as invasive alien species.

Thanks Carrie :D For Blue Flax the soil needs to be pretty sharp draining and infertile...full sun best, partial shade ok. They aren't a long lived perennial anyways...3-4 years tops even in best conditions. If I mulch them it's with gravel. Vera

I don't think the whole tree is going to be damaged or turn yellow. Just the old leaves which had plenty of damage to them at this point seem to be giving up the ghost. The new foliage on the tree is still continueing to grow and fill in. In addition, since we have had about 20 in ches of rain in the past month or so, the very top of the soil is dry, and the soil about 1.5" deep is wet. So I'll check it with the meter every day or so unitl they equalize. The fingerlime is wet solid through it's soil, but it doesn't seem to care. It is growing purple hue shoots all over the place. It will make a fine bush by the end of the summer...lol. I will be fertilizing in Aug sometime otherwise. I'll post some more pics at the end of the week. VTY -Mark