I have a zone 6 pocket in my yard where the roses with surviving canes were budding out, so I was able to get some early pruning in. Boy, it's not a pretty sight. Virtually everything is pruned to the ground - even old fashioned roses like Madame Isaac Periere - and I'm not sure even some of my well-established grafted roses will come back from that pruning. In many cases, I couldn't cut back to healthy cane because there wasn't any. Thank heavens for own root roses, so we at least have the illusion of hope for winter survival even if it's unlikely in some cases. As others have mentioned, my Austins are by far the greenest canes around, along with ridiculously hardy plants like Quadra. Even some of my stalwart Kordes shrubs like Bad Worishofen/Pink Emely were pruned to the ground, though I'm sure they'll be back. Surprising to me were some hybrid teas that still had live cane - Nigrette comes to mind as a weak, spineless wimpazoid of a bush that needs heavy feeding to put out those gorgeously maroon blooms, but it survived this nasty winter better than most. I ended up pruning virtually everything in that bed down to 6" or less, most of whom are well established, even Madame Alfred Carriere who had 8-10' of droopy canes left from last year. Turns out this wasn't a bad thing, as I found some brown cane centers low on the plants below what looked like healthy cane in many of the roses, maybe from some rabbit damage over the winter low on the canes. Austins are notorious for me to hide hidden canker damage low on the plant and still look like the canes survived. All in all, it'll be the opposite of last spring where I hardly pruned anything and had roses falling all over everywhere all season. Still, it's not bad to get a complete haircut every now and then, assuming of course things survive. I think the death count will be rather higher than usual, including some old favorites that got shocked. Cynthia

That's a delightful illustration from inside the cover of Walsh's Handbook of Roses. Walsh's Handbook illustrations are all photographs in black and white with the exception of the cover which is a color illustration. His handbooks are available for study at the Woods Hole Historical Museum although the 1905 and 1907 editions are not complete. The Fay family donated most of Walsh's Handbooks to the Museum many decades ago. Some of the pages or illustrations from the handbook are available on HMF under the specific rose which is illustrated or described. Here's the description of 'Evangeline' Walsh gives in his handbook: A distinct variety, with single flowers 2 inches in diameter. The foliage is very luxuriant. Flowers are borne in large clusters, are white with the tips of petals pink; deliciously fragrant. Foliage on the young growth of this variety is particularly attractive. It is of a beautiful bronze green. The contrast of the flowers with the handsome foliage is most charming. Evangeline is suited for pergolas, parkways, trellises, or for whatever purposes it may be desired. Perfectly hardy. $1 each, $9 per doz. I should note that the fragrance is truly wonderful from this rose as it readily carries in the air. ‘Evangeline’ seems to be the most robust of the Walsh roses and is easily found in the Woods Hole and Falmouth area. Finally, the “beautiful bronze green foliage” is also a marker for ‘Dorothy Perkins’ which makes it easy to identify since ‘Lady Gay’ does not exhibit this trait.

The picture of the 'Seven Sisters Rose' submitted by Ami Roses (and probably the correct identification) does look remarkably like the multi-colored rose above, although the flowers appear bigger or fuller petaled in his photo. I have always thought that 'Seven Sisters Rose' wasn't hardy in zone 6, so have never considered that I might come across it. Alida, regarding the spread of Walsh roses ( and those he sold) throughout the Cape, I have found that if there is one old rose in a community (excluding 'Dorothy Perkins' and 'Excelsa') then it is often fruitful to look in the neighborhood for others. For example, at one house where I saw 'Ghislaine de Feligonde', I found after more investigation, that it also had 'Debutante', 'Silver Moon', and 'Dr. Van Fleet'. Further, there are several plants of R. canina in the yard which suggests that there were more roses and the missing roses were on that rootstock. 'Hansa' is, inexplicably, growing in the sand at the end of the street where no house could have been. So it might be worth looking around wherever you find one OGR for others.

There are some really nice pictures in this collection. I will add a few of my "B" roses. The first is a large spray on Blue for You, something that up until this past year it was not doing. It was blooming mostly singly and in small clusters, but this one was a surprise. The next one is a group of flowers on my climber, Bright Fire. They were actually having decent form and looking more like classic hybrid teas. The next one is my white damask rose Botzaris. My last one is a gallica rose, Belle sans Flatterie, which sometimes looks like a 2-tone with the outer petals a lighter shade and the inner ones a darker shade. It is quite pretty and delicate. I hope you will like these few.