Oh, I wish you lots of lucky and hope you have no damage.

Carla
from the land of the drought

We had the freezing rain Saturday night into Sunday with more expected tonight through Tuesday. My 6' tall Sir Thomas Lipton rugosas are coated and almost lying flat; the oak tree limbs are hanging down and look like spruce trees; pine trees are listless; wisteria around the pool is really pretty and looks like thick white wire. With more ice expected, I don't know how the trees are going to stand it. Already see a few small limbs on the ground. I wish it had warmed up enough to melt what was on the ground before this other system hit tonight.

Already had one traffic fatality on I-74 here Saturday; someone slid under a semi. I also worry about the poor deer and the other animals in the forests around my house that can't find food.

Everyone...please be safe and stay home if you don't have to be out in this mess! It's dangerous driving and walking is even hazardous. -terry

No ice here (not to make you jealous, but it's 73 here and we had lunch sitting outside at the resturant today), but I have noticed some lingering damage on my roses.

Since some of them have lost a lot of leaves due to cold and blackspot, I have spotted many dead canes, more than usual. There was one on my climbing QE that was BLACK. Not brown or grey, but black as night.

So while I'm hoping for a mild winter, I don't want it to get as warm as it was last Jan/Feb. That caused a lot of early new growth that was zapped in the Easter Freeze.

One thing that I learned in our last ice storm, is that a tennis racket is perfect to knock ice off plants. We had many young pines that were literally laying down on the ground with ice. They were pulled right out of the ground, which was actually good because they didn't break. We were able to stake them and save all but one.

Buford,
You might want to take that black cane off as cleanly as possible and then clean your secateurs. Black is a different kind of death than when canes go gray.
We had a slow growing season (I laugh at this understatement, because I could cry). It wasn't just the roses, but the trees and shrubs as well. Much of what's alive was alive in June. Not a whole lot of fall growth for winter to kill.
I am not a mathematician nor an engineer who deals with thermal dynamics of air and water masses. But I know that air gets cold when the sunlight doesn't reach it, and then the cold disappates. And there was a lot of cold air last Easter that had to go somewhere.
I don't want anyone to have icestorms. They are deadly to all things. But I would rather the cold flowed away from the North Pole throughout winter, rather than store up for a last gasp in mid spring.

Ann, it was a large cane so we used the hacksaw. I couldn't find my pruning saw (if I have to get a new one, it will be my 3rd in 4 years. I need to put a GPS tracker on it!)

Should I dispose of the black cane and not compost it? I've been letting my rose canes dry and chipping them up and putting them in my compost.

I think that particular black color is associated with some (worse than average) saprophytic fungi (that are specialist in feeding on newly dead canes.) When I've let it stay in a rose, it has spread. Since that happened, we either bag it for the landfill or put it on a hot fire. I don't want the spores around.
And the pruning saw? We have a can of ghastly yellow green paint that goes on all tools that have been replacements. Then they are harder to overlook or leave behind because the colors call out, not in a good way. I do appreciate the red orange handles on Felcos for the same reason.

Thanks, I'll put it on the firewood pile.

Hopefully your roses will be ok as they are dormant now. But then you do have to worry about the cane-hardy ones that bloom on old wood getting knocked down from the ice.

Buford thanks for the tennis racket tip. We are supposed to get the ice here later today.

Weather modification. As long as people are reporting this:
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Your going to be seeing freak weather. Drought in the SE. Spring freezes. Floods. Ice storms. Etc. Research it before you come back and tell me to wear my tin hat. Research Barium and high pressure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zocEQXHcLus

Hi Bustopher - did the ice storm hit your area? About midnight here in the Peoria, IL area, it started raining hard, but thank goodness, it never did turn to freezing rain as predicted. It has stayed rain. If it had turned to ice, we would have been in big trouble. Hope all is well for you. They are predicting a clipper system and now for us tomorrow. Wish the ice would melt on the trees and plants; my birch tree is really hanging low and I'm afraid the branches might break. Birches are fragile and can't take much.

Bustopher, I'm also worried. I live in the KCMO area and you are right, the weather is awful. The thing that bothers me most is that I am doubtful that my roses were in a dormant state when this ice storm hit. The ground is not frozen...it is still muddy out. I did not winter protect aggressively...yet. What was it...just a week ago when it was in the 50's and 60's and maybe higher? The Easter freeze was brutal...I lost 10 bushes...even a couple Buck's.

If it helps, 2 years ago we had a bad ice storm here in Atlanta on December 5th. I doubt my roses were dormant then, they really don't go dormant until January. I didn't have any major damage on them from that. As long as you don't have a lot of new growth, you should be ok.

Thanks buford. I'm relatively new to the ART of growing roses. I'm still not sure when to winter protect. Last year I'm sure I put them to bed too early, and then uncovered them too early!

Ah, bustopher --reporting in from southeast Kansas where the ice storm has done SEVERE DAMAGE. Haven't had heat, electricity, TV, nor internet since Sunday morning. Got heat and electricty back this morning (that was two long cold nights!) and my cable (TV and internet) about an hour ago. Some people in town won't get heat, etc., until the end of the week!

Haven't had time to worry about roses yet. Instead, trees falling down all over town. Hardly a yard that doesn't have big branches laying around. In many yards, big old trees split in half. BIG branches from my neighbor's oak tree took out my cable. Same thing happened to my neighbor on the other side. Saw a big pear tree split down the center, all the branches (except one)laying in a perfect circle around the stump/trunk. Got four big branches down in my yard, but fortunately they didn't hit anything except the ground. It is truly awful around here. It will be a wonder if we have any decent looking trees by next spring!

Poor roses--yes, they took a big hit with the big Easter freeze last spring--took most of the summer for them to rebound. Now the big Xmas freeze--2 inches of ice on everything out there, including the roses (which were not dormant)--2 inches of ice for 2 1/2 days. It rained this afternoon, will freeze tonight--have no idea what things will look like by tomorrow.

I have no idea what will survive, but I'm fearing I may have to buy lots of replacement roses in the spring. Just never have seen anything like the freezes we have had this year. Will let you know next spring what happens.

Kate

We've only had minimal icing so far here but it's been raining steadily and the temps are supposed to drop over night so they say we could get some ice changing to snow.

I'm not too worried about my roses. They were good and dormant when I mulched them in for the winter last weekend. As long as it stays cold they should be fine. It's when we get a long warm spell above freezing (like last January) that I start to worry. It's that yo-yoing that does the most damage. They only have so much energy stored to start the new season with and every time they begin to leaf out and then get killed back again they use up some of the precious energy. They can only rebound so many times before they just give up.

I've seen all the awful weather you all have been having on the Weather Channel and I really do feel for you. Been there, done that many times in the past so I know it's no picnic. I hope every one stays safe and sound and things start to normalize soon.

I heard about the ice storms in Kansas and Chicago and other places in the midwest U.S. on the news, and I can definitely sympathize with what you are going through. The last really disasterous one we had (along with northeastern US)in January 1998 left terrible scars for many years after. I'm sure every tree and shrub was damaged. I remember looking out the window at everything(because you really couldn't go anywhere, it just wasn't safe) and thinking how eerily beautiful and peaceful everything looked. How deceptive that beauty was. My thoughts are with you all. I hope your gardens make it though in good shape, but mainly that you stay safe and warm.
Judith

We've been relatively lucky on this one--we've "only" had 2 1/2 inches of icy rain. The trees are coated, but it warmed up long enough that some of the ice fell off. My roses were not even close to being dormant, and most were full of green leaves. We needed rain, so that part was good. The forecasters scared us by saying this was going to be worse than the ice storm we had in January 2005, which taught us to never plant Bradform pears, as they looked like a giant apple corer/slicer had attacked. This time, the loblolly pines and birches are leaning over, but the other trees are ok. My roses took all summer to recover from the Easter freeze, and I suspect some are too weakened to survive a hard winter. My sympathies to the people north and south of us, because I know what they are going through. We're still pruning trees damaged by the 2005 storm.

We did get hit with some ice, but not as much as those north of us from St. Joseph and points north. However, this is what it looked like in my yard and up my street.

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Lost one large branch from my Japanese Whitespire Birch. The Knockouts and rugosas are still lying flat on the ground and look pretty dismal; I hope their canes aren't broken. We had some melting today but not quick enough to save my birch from harm.