Hi folks

OK, here's an unusual problem for all of us cold zone rose gardeners this spring. What are all these monster green canes doing in my yard, not only surviving, but putting out leaves? When I start to prune them, almost none of them have the icky brown canker centers, not even the Austins!! Only a handful of roses have the characteristic black cane to the ground level playing "guess if I've survived or not". I find myself lost without my usual pruning rules in zone 5 which were 3 pretty simple strategies, as follows:

Alive: any green cane that doesn't require leaning down to ground level to detect. Pruning rules: don't bother cutting anything you don't feel like cutting, except to check for and trim off bad canes (see below). Most of the HTs, HPs, and floribundas end up around 6-12" tall if lucky, except for tough puppy shrubs like Quadra, Teasing Georgia, John Davis, & Earth Song.

Bad: any cane with dark brown to medium tan centers, can be any color on the outside, or any canes with suspicious looking large purple splotches on the outside. Pruning rules: you might as well start halfway down any large-ish canes because they're probably cankered down to the bottoms, notably the 75 Knockouts I prune for my church and all the Austins except Teasing Georgia in my yard (however good they might look on the outside). Don't even bother trimming small canes till you check for major canker below.

Nonexistent: mysterious holes where a small to medium sized set of canes used to be last fall. My theories range from rabbit destruction, tender canes turning to ooze over the winter like non-woody perennials, or something you stepped on over the winter that's sulking and deciding if it will forgive you and grow back. Pruning rules: leave the plant marker and promise not to grub carefully around to see if there are any roots left to grow back from, for fear you might accidentally knock off the only new sprouts that are going to grow this spring off that pitiful thing (and thereby teach your young children new words you really don't want them to say). Leave the marker for at least two years for bare root plants in the hope of resurrection (it has been known in my yard).

See, now isn't that easy? No thinking involved beyond basic caveman survival instincts - duhh, bad cane, very bad, ugh, cane gone, good rose survive, yes? Quite therapeutic for me in the spring when I haven't exactly woken up from winter hibernation. It's not fair now, when I actually have to THINK when I prune!! And horror of horrors, I have to cut off PERFECTLY GOOD CANE with LEAVES even!!

Yeah, yeah, I know the basic principles of pruning. Don't cut off more than a third of the plant, cut the oldest canes first, open up the middle of the plant, and prune to encourage the plant towards its natural shape, let the rose tell you what size and configuration it wants to be. What experience do I have with shaping in the springtime?? I mean, how much can you shape a 3 inch nubbin of a cane that's usually all I have left? What happened to zone 5 anyway, even if we're now officially 5b?

I guess I'm not really complaining, since I've always been thrilled to have more than 12" of cane on any rose after the winter. It's just odd to walk up to roses like Bad Worishofen/Pink Emely and realize that not only do I not need to cut off anything at all, it is fully leafed out and looks as good or better than it did before the winter. All this live cane means it's much more treacherous to walk between the roses to prune them, and I'm not used to having my head hurt from all the decisions, as well as the rest of me hurting from the much-too-frisky canes that are out to get me.

Anyone else relate to these mixed sentiments?

Cynthia