Most of the 32 roses in my garden are zone 5 or lower with just a few zone 6. This is in Western NY along the Niagara river near Niagara Falls. The temps have been frigid single digit with high winds. Some days it it 25-30 miles an hours sustained for hours. The garden is 11 years old and this is the harshest winter yet. All the roses are own root. It will be interesting as to how they all do. Every time I shovel snow I heap it on the roses. What canes poke out are black. There will be heavy pruning this spring when ever it gets here. I usually do some pruning the start of April. This year I may wait till I see fat leaf buds ready to sprout. The snow is a great blessing as I keep telling myself as I clear another 2ft drift,lol We will all have to add an extra load of TLC this spring.

Taoseeker stated: "It would be interesting to compare a few old varieties with the heat treated ones." I am not sure if you are refering to what what I think you are. If you are interested in whether a virused but then heat treated plant does better or worse than one of the same variety that was never virused, this is my response. Plants are very complex, it is possible that the virus and / or the heat treatment may have affected other mechanisms (could be positive or negative). There are many types of examples but since a very recent (2009) example of the "expression of heat stress proteins" has been studied in a rose, I will present that example. The actual research paper is very technical. The paper is at the following link: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6203748 Rather than looking at the specific details most readers would probably benefit more from the following summary of the field: http://www.cspp.cn/Annual2009/upload/pub09.pdf Please notice the statement: "It is known that rapid heat hardening can be elicited by a brief exposure of cells to sub-lethal high temperature, which in turn provides protection from subsequent and more severe temperature." This does not "prove" that heat treated roses will have better heat resistance. Maybe a longer term of high temperature will result in other effects (positive or negative). I am presenting this to indicate that one cannot assume that other variables are being held constant. It is possible that effects may not show up till years later. Some "cured" polio victims are now finding that many years later problems related to the polio are appearing. -------------------------- The effects of a virus infection can be very unexpected. The following link discusses the observed effect of a virus on aphid population (not done on roses): http://www.springerlink.com/content/uw13564v21223876/ I have posted several times about my experince with a virused Culbert Grant from Pickering. Up to then my best Climber was Illusion. This new Culbert Grant bloomed and grew much better than Illusion all summer. I was very excited. That winter I received a letter from Pickering that it was virused and that they were pulling it off the market. That spring it was dead. Scientists at Cornell University surveyed approximately 2500 roses by visible assessment. They found that 166 had virus symptons: http://www.actahort.org/books/234/234_53.htm From the abstract, it does not appear that anything unusual was observed, but from the full paper a number of unexpected results were reported such as: "Total flower cut weight and total number of flower cuts with nonsymptomatic foliage was greater from PNRSV (severe) inoculated rose plants than from healthy control plants. The data revealed also that PNRSV (severe) and ApMV (severe) inoculated plants outyielded the PNRSV (mild) inoculated plants, which in turn outyielded the healthy tissue inoculated plants. These results were unexpected since reduced yields would be anticipated from virus infections." They then discuss some "maybes. one of these is: "Another speculation is that the initial stage of viral infection stimulates host metabolism by competing and utilizing the host ribonucleic acid polymerases for ita viral replication." i.e. The virus infection may be causing the rose to grow better. ----------------------------------------------- The following non rose paper may be of interest: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6203748 Explanation of the sympols: (VT) I assume that (VT) means heat treated since I found this using heat treatment as a key work. The abstract is not clear. (My literature search service says the full paper can be down loaded but when I try it states that it is too new and has not been uploaded yet.) (V) is virused infected. (VTR) is virused reinfected. Just to highlight one of the observations: "V plants produced big tubers that weighed more than those from VT plants."

I wanted to share with you guys that we had a wonderful times at the WCDS (White County Daylily Society) today. My friends told me that they were intersted about daylily at the meeting today. The people are so freindly. One lady knows little signs. I was so happy to know people can try to communicate with me. I got some daylilies home today. It is Pink Embers and Hazw Souffle (hard to read words on tag)... I join WCDS as a member today. Kat

I'm a member. And I'm not crazy about it. I've never once got to try a product. You get a monthly magazine, but I haven't seen much that I like there either. Keep getting e-mails from them wanting me to get their Visa card. I was getting their books to view, but I put a stop to it. If you open them and you didn't want them you had to pay to send them back. And the books weren't cheap. The first one was, then the others where at regular price. I use to belong to a "garden club" like this one and it's the same thing.