It depends on where the grafts on your roses are. If they are up in the air (the way some recommend), you may have a problem. Re you other plants: Gingers will come back from the roots, as will philodendrums and angel trumpets (this from experiences in NOLA when temps got that low and froze pipes. We kept our tree fern alive by wrapping it with incandescent Christmas lights and then with plastic. You will probably lose your Meyer Lemon because it's grafted and coming back from the roots .....you know the rest.

I don't think roses on Fortuniana can go dormant. I've growns (and continue to grow) both R. x fortuniana and four or five roses on fortuniana. From it's parent R. laevigata, fortuniana gets genes that make it grow through winter and to set bloom very early in spring. Remember that where it comes from, winter is not what we know as winter...it's just shorter daylight. Fortuniana roots keep pushing nutrients and wanting to grow into the above ground parts, whether they are fortuniana or something else put on by grafting or budding. Jimmy Moser out in warm, warm Memphis years ago wrote about overwintering his roses on fort...in plywood boxes that fit over his roses. That said, you need to grow a rose on fort in conditions where it never slows down. It's both eyeopening and a bit depressing because never will you and I get growth like that, short of moving way far south with the flying cockroaches and fire ants and buckmoth caterpillers and chilli thrips and need to air conditions six to eight months of the year. WIth two decades in Houston and NOLA, I say that without wistfullness.

Maybe 12 years ago, I wrote the article linked below. The 3. at the end is a foornote to the 3 after susceptibility. George Mander "has made arrangements with a wholesale rosegrower, Jan Verschuren, to graft his budwood on R. canina. Jan prefers R. canina currently. R. canina is what was used there before WW2. The original canina was notorious for suckering. There are new canina selections since then. R. canina cv. "Inermis" is the most widely used variety. Much less suckering takes place, but it still suckers. R. canina cv."Heinsohn's Rekord" is regarded as the very best for Hybrid Teas (Jan agrees out of experience). R. corymbifera cv. "Laxa" or R. dumetorum cv. "Laxa" is more and more being grown on Europe's mainland. It was always used as a rootstock for Great Britain only. Because it suckers little and is, therefore, a cheaper way of growing roses, the mainland now also grows more and more on Laxa. However, Laxa is not as winterhardy as R. canina. For treeroses, R. canina cv. "Pfander" is the best one (his family has a well established R. canina cv."Pfander" weeping treerose of The Fairy in their garden at home surviving at some -24 degrees C unprotected, its budunion up in the air). Cheap fast production for big box stores has opened a market for multiflora cutting rootstocks for treeroses in Holland, but they have little winterhardiness. He also points out that R. multiflora is softer and the grafts a little more likely to be weak during the first year (Brad had one of George's Canadian White Star break right at the bud union; it can happen in a strong wind). Multiflora is much faster in production, but has a shorter lifespan than canina. Brad's experience is roses grafted on R. canina suckered freely and didn't produce as many basal shoots as R. multiflora or own-root roses. However, Jan points out that multiflora was shipped to Sweden because they had guaranteed snow cover in their winters. All other parts never wanted multiflora because of its frost susceptibility 3. Obviously, there is great debate going on here concerning the relative merits of various rootstocks." "3. This has always been a hot topic for Jan. Another former local grower here lost his crop on multiflora when temperatures went down to minus 24 degrees C. "I should have put more straw on" was his thinking... Jan hills up his budunions in fall and sleeps easy, even with minus 24. In his opinion, multiflora is never as winterhardy as R. canina selections are. As his father mentioned when he said to him that all growers use multiflora in Canada. " What?! Are they backward there?" The name Verschuren is closely related to rosegrowing in Holland. They are rootstock specialists. They produce seed, stratify and produce rootstock (about 6,000,000/ yr); and are only a medium size rootstock grower! Combined with Germany and the huge rosegrowers, competition is immense. Out of the competition, the best emerges because of the scale in which things are done there. The scales are different in Canada: here, rose production is done on a hobbyfarm basis. Multiflora is easy to grow; that is why it is used here; that is Jan's conclusion. When he met Otto Palleck, the just retired Ontario rosegrower, Palleck said, "What? You grow on canina? That is the best rootstock there is, but we cannot get No.1 quality here...." That was most likely not his only problem, as seed germination with canina requires 2 years of stratifying. Brian Minter told Jan initially when he started out doubtfully here with canina rootstock, "Do the best you can and grow the best product possible, and you will succeed" Now, Jan has customers who are coming back raving to buy more. His treeroses did not blink their eyes at the cold last winter." Here is a link that might be useful: A Visit with B.C. Rosemen

Ortho has a hose end adjustable sprayer that has worked well for me with the Ortho product and the Spectra products as well. Saldut, I have to wonder what your preocupation with OGRs on Fortuniana is. If there are a class of roses that we Floridians can grow on their own roots it is the time tested OGRs. You are right about Nelson's Roses having a good selection but I would look up the mother-daughter team that is Blooming Idiots. They too are located up in the central Florida region but their specialty is pure OGRs (on own root, though). They've never had a problem growing great big OGRs in our soils (nor have I for all that matter, and I can kill a bush with the best of them). Your not getting a prompt response from Cool Roses doesn't surprise me. Debbie is the one that handles the e-mails and sometimes she gets too busy with the other stuff to get around to answering the cyber mail. I would recomend giving them a call. It's the fastest way I've been able to get ahold of them. As far as your BS problem goes...Nothing works for me as well as Banner Maxx and Dithane. Always remember that you need a contact fungicide and a systemic one to give the ole BS the one-two punch. Also consider, however, that with the heat we've been having that spraying could cause more problems than solve them. I'm waiting for a few good cold spells to cut everything back down and start up my spray program again (thrips are my constant demons). Another good preventative is to pick off the leaves with BS and throw it away in a trash can instead of letting it fall into the soil at the base of the bush. Hope this info helps.