Ooh, how gorgeous. When my sister lived there we went to the rose gardens and Japanese gardens. Carla

Do you have pear trees or those pink weeping cherries? Those are blooming here now, too. And other orchard trees like peaches and apricots. I usually just prune out the discolored canes from winter, back until the canes are nice and green. Then prune out any canes that will cross too closely to another one (unless it's a small plant that needs all the canes and leaves it can get). You can take some height off of most modern roses if you like (or leave them tall), but if the rose only blooms once a year wait until after it blooms to do that. Some of the good canes may not actually be a great green. I have some that get kind of purple in the winter. That's fine. And some old canes can look kind of dead when they are just woody, so look for live buds pushing leaves if it's a particularly woody rose bush. Then you do have to cut off canes that have bad, cankered spots in them. You have to cut those off below the cankered area. Those are usually pretty obvious, I think (or I don't worry about the small ones). I hate to have to cut off long canes for that, but if you have a big bad spot on any cane, the cane will have to come off sometime. The canker can spread/creep down and up the cane, so go on and take care of that before the rose wastes all kinds of energy on the cane. Sterilize your pruners between cuts when dealing with canker.

I think you can plant them anytime after the Forsythia blooms in your area... at that point the ground should be workable and warm for plant growth. Spring rain should also follow to keep them watered for you. You can prune if you want to but wait to see signs of life first to know where there is good or bad wood. Pruning encourages growth in roses so it is generally considered good practice with a few exceptions. Just don't prune severely! No need to get drastic. Since you overwintered them in your garage I'd expect them to be alive to the tips but you never know. As for first time tips? Well, make sure they are well fed and planted in good soil. I'm more of an organic grower now, piling tons of compost on the soil when I plant and using a slow release fertilizer only for the first year as I wait for the compost to start releasing nutrients into the soil. After that I am done with fertilizing. Since you already planted roses before, just remember that the David Austin roses are still roses so the same rules of giving them a good growing environment apply. If you live in an area with high pressure of fungal diseases then you need to figure out how you'd like to handle it because those roses you have are not disease resistant, definitely not resistant to black spot as far as I know (based on what I have read, I have grown none of them). Also your Knock Out rose can't be 20 years old as those were released in 1999/2000, if you are sure it is a 20 year old rose bush then perhaps it is something else other than a Knock Out? Good luck and enjoy!

Many references to "old cabbage roses" will also be about Hybrid Perpetuals, not just "true" cabbage roses, i.e. Centifolias. I think it meant rounded bloom form as opposed to pointed Hybrid Tea bloom form. Erasmus, my 'Clotilde Soupert' came from you, and is rather huge this year. It shot up, then leaned outward as it filled out. Now it's about three feet tall and five feet in diameter. Looking back, I should have cut it down a little more this year, since it's starting to block 'Charles de Mills' behind it. As you mentioned, mine is also one of my healthiest roses, and balling happens only when it's cool and damp -- not when it's warm and damp nor cool and dry. When I expect or see balling, I just snip the blooms off and wait for the next round, which follows rather quickly. It also looks like it's racing against 'Marie Pavie' and a few others to claim the "first rose of the season to bloom", which should begin any day now. The clematis are already starting. :-) ~Christopher