It is a month later and they look fabulous! Still short to the ground but flush with leaves and new buds. Perhaps this was not such a bad idea after all! Have started my first ever batch of alfalfa tea and will feed them that this weekend. Thanks to those of you who gave advice (as opposed to making snarky comments about my husband) ;-)

I haven't had roses long either, but I think it is fairly easy to see where to prune in the spring. Wait to do it after your last frost which should be around March or April. It is a signal for your rose to start growing again so wait until you are sure it is safe. Now, when you look at your rose this spring you will see brown ends on the canes. That is dead wood, and you will cut all of that out. Make your first cut just below the brown wood into the green part of the cane. If you don't see any green cane then prune down to the soil. If the green cane is all white inside like an apple, it is good wood. If the inside is brown then you need to prune further down. Watch for dark areas on the green canes. That is canker and you need to prune below any canker you see. Once you have finished pruning seal all the cuts with something. I use regular white glue, but you can use carpenter's glue or nail polish. That will keep out borers which would otherwise lay their eggs inside the cut end of the cane. Feel free to stop by the rose forum for more advice. I post there quite often and everyone is very helpful.

You probably didn't kill them, but you didn't do them any favors,either. Somehow, some folks in Tennessee have decided that roses are the same plants as other shrubs. This leads to some who severe prune as early as late September and again in November. This sort of thing takes strength away from the plants. Roses don't want to go dormant here. If you cut them in fall, they'll put out new growth in two to four weeks, even though it's not yet winter. That growth will probably be killed in late December, and that earlier cutting will have taken away the stored 'strength' that would go to regrow the plant in spring. I've watched some Knockout that have been pruned three times this fall. I don't know what the heck the grounds crew thinks they are doing, much less why. What you should have done (in my opinion) was go through and snip off broken canes. Then in late December go in and prune back for height, depending on how high you want them to be next year. The winter killed new growth that you are going to get, you'll see it contorted and blackened, you can snip it off in winter as well.

When I started out gardening, I bought books. A few very interesting and helpful English ones - look for Christopher Lloyd and Vita Sackville-West. I would also recommend Cassandra Danz - learning all that stuff is difficult enough, why not having a bit of fun while at it? Secondly, sit and think. What do you want - as opposed to 'what does everybody else do'. Do you want an ocean of flowers and fragrance, do you want edibles, do you want low maintenance, do you want an evening garden or a morning garden, is *your* time of the year spring or fall... While you're wondering and reading, ammend the soil: compost, mulch and green manure every inch you can see with the unarmed eye. You have all the time in the world, and a year of doing nothing but reading, ammending the soil and thinking will get you *your dream garden* actually earlier than stuffing some plants into some earth and wondering why they die instantly. The fora at the gardenweb are an incredible source of know-how and compassion - you can find out a lot about almost everything, and sometimes all the questions that you might have are already discussed in depth and your growing zone. Lastly a plea: since you have to learn a lot anyhow, learn the correct things: plants have botanical names, and these are the correct names. Do not, please, neverever, use common names - because common names are neither common nor correct... finding out about the needs of a special plant if all you know is some name that nobody else ever heard is a time consuming and frustrating way to kill a plant. Besides that, botanical names are world-wide and language-independent - so you can read about gardens all over the world and know what plants they are talking about :) Good luck!