Your roses might not be dead; there could be live cane below the soil line, or at the soil line. I would prune off the dead wood, and see what happens this spring. I'm not familiar with Don Juan, but it might be prone to dieback in a cold zone.

Hi Annececilia and Michaela, It is so good and encouraging to know that these roses may still be growing (and they are definitely not dead). Similar to you, I have cut off all the dead canes last weekend. I will feed them today and keep them appropriately watered (not an issue with our spring weather so far this year). Hopefully new growth will continue. My two pink double knockouts (in a different part of the property) are doing fine and there are good new growth already. I probably will not plant new and tall annuals right next to them so the roses can receive good sun light and nutrients. I am thinking using a couple of pots strategically placed to create some colors needed for the garden while not create competition for the roses. Thanks for the information and now I am much more hopeful! Vivian

Buford, The one time I'll go in and cut lowest is when the cane is mushy. This hasn't happened often, and I don't know what the disease is, but sometimes the cane has leaves that don't look good, and I'll wiggle it to see if it's broken and it's not broken, it's mushy. Then I will cut lowest possible, usually in stages and I follow the cleanliness regime that Cass recommends (sometimes with adding bleach in between cuts to the secateurs if I think the disease has a real lethal potential.) The cleanliness that Cass talks about is so important. About rugosas: We visited a garden Wednesday where we'd watched two beds that were primarily Pink Grootendorsts with a few interplanted forsythia. One bed is gone, replaced with grass. In the eight years we've watched these, only one plant had gotten Rose Rosette, and we'd pruned the sick canes off; that bush is still RRD-free. But with no care, another plant is a RRD mess now and forsythia is taking over. The remaining five Pink G's are mostly dead canes. In my part of the world, have have seen this dead cane thing on rugosas in my yard, I try to cut them back as far as possible and it makes a better looking rose. But I've seen some mass plantings of rugosas up in the mountains (clear zone 6 cold) and many of the rugosas are mostly similar dead canes. Down here, the rugosas aren't 'no care'. The cause? Sometimes you'll see a swelling on the canes. I've sent some of those to some plant pathologists who couldn't find any boring insects or other pathogen. I'm afraid we may learn more about rugosa diseases as northern Europeans consider ways to fight and kill rugosas which are becoming known in parts of Scandanavia as invasive alien species.

Paul3: Yes, consistently (little variation) dark (not really extremely dark), cool, dry are very important for dormancy storage of bananas. The interactions of light with non-freezing but low temperature causes chilling injury in most tropical plants which can progress to cell tissue death and subsequent attack by molds and fungi. What happens in this case is that when light strikes the leaves or stems or any photsynthetic tissues, the electrons gets fired up. But the low temperature lowers metabolic activities such that there are no active electron acceptors down the photosynthetic factory. The excited electrons when its energy cannot be diffused would literally damage tissues around it. Damaged tissues are susceptible to attack by fungi or bacteria. Only small wattage light are okay to use, and intermittently only when you need it. The dryness is important to discourage rotting away the corm. The cool is something natural during winter time and induces dormancy of tropical plants as long as it is non-freezing. These three things should be played out in balance. I have kept mine in garage where I have stable temperature that varies only by 10 deg F every day (45 deg F to 55 deg F) during the winter. If your attic temperature varies only by 10 deg F during the entire 24 hours, then that should be okay.