I also pruned mine back in late February, some of them were already very tall, as we had a very mild winter this year. Of course we have had a freeze since then but it hasn't seemed to effect them. I usually treat all of mine as group 3, as they usually freeze to the ground. The years I have lightly pruned my group 2 they have later froze and looked very ugly and spindly.

Hi Claris, It is best not to prune in autumn, because pruning sends the rose signals that it needs to grow (rather than wind-down for the season and go dormant). Does it look really shaggy right now, or why do you want to prune it? You can often maintain a good shape by just deadheading after it blooms.

So As of this past Saturday, April 18th, I removed the collars off of the 12 rosebushes. The bushes had many skinny tall stems greening up, but with weird looking tiny purple/wine colored leaves (no, not rosette). I just ended up doing probably more pruning than I should have. (blame it on the being cooped up for what seems like forever....). I looked at how far back I pruned, thinking....'Why did I prune that low???' Too late now. There are green stems on all of them, but one or two of the bushes have more dead than green. I forget from year to year how far down I prune, but I think I pruned lower than in the past. I know in Milwaukee, WI, back in November we had a horrible cold/freeze. I wonder (since that would always be way too early to winterize) if that brief freeze did a 'number' on my bushes. I'm hoping that by June, they will have gotten taller & leafier with buds. Arghhhhhh The rosebush that looks the worst is the Happy Go Lucky yellow one (my only yellow) that I was told was a very vibrant bush. It did beautifully when I first planted it about 2 years ago. this past Summer I noticed a number of roses, but not as big as the first year. I wanted a healthy yellow that was resistant to black spot which seems to happen a lot in our area.

7A - usual lows has really been maybe high 20's this year on average. Winters just seem to be warmer in general and much less snow for sure. It's just dieback on the tops of where I cut - I sppose top be expected. I posted this as there was one new stem. Only about 6 inches high with a growth off of it - all from last year. There was some dieback on this (this one for sure I did not do pruning in jan). I did prune back the brown on this one , which spurned the post. The others, all still at 4' high I know will be getting another haircut soon, so those dieback is kinda moot to some degree