Fair enough, lol. Maybe I should have just put it on for the very, very cold nights and left it off otherwise. We really only had 2-3 nights that were extraordinarily low this year.

For now, we got up into the 70's yet will be at 20 or below tomorrow night :( It's the first really warm day and probably the last pretty cold night, though, so I decided to remove it all the day after.

Lots of differing opinions about winter protection. I didn't do it much in the past but after losing so many roses last year I did do it last fall. We'll see if it makes a difference or not.

As for your question, it all depends on the weather and we all know how strange that's been of late. For me it will depend on when I see a reliable pattern of night time temperatures remaining above freezing. If you have live cane above the protection that you can see, once it starts to leaf out you might need to take the protection off. Spring is always the scariest time in the garden for me because of the iffy weather!

It is scary! So far I do see great live cane everywhere I check except the very tops of a few roses, so I really, really hope I'm good as far as bad cold damage goes.

I hope you are out of the woods, too! I remembered that you lost a lot of roses last year as well :(

I think it is starting to stay above/around freezing here, except for the cold snap tomorrow. Roses are budding now, but not actually leafing out yet, so I'm probably not too late then :) Thanks!

This year has been insane, weather wise. Yes, it was 75 yesterday, but getting colder now. I don't do winter protection normally, but after last year, I did it on a few. What I am doing is any new roses, I am planting the graft right at ground level, where before I followed the advice for my zone to have it an inch or two above ground. I did buy some roses on fortuniana, and I've been told that the grafts have to be above ground, so those will get some winter protection next year.

I have roses in the ground that have new growth on them, but the canes look bad, reddish and splotchy. I think it's what happened last year where they canes are damaged, but still have enough energy to put out new growth. Whether these roses will survive, I don't know. I haven't pruned yet, except for a few climbers.

I think with winter protection, you're damned if you do and you're damed if you don't.

We've had snow cover during the cold snaps this year, unlike last winter. So far I haven't seen much die back (fingers crossed).

I wrap my tender roses with burlap. I used to fill the burlap with wood mulch, until I realized it actually didn't help to protect the roses. I think I lost one rose last year--which isn't too bad out of 200 roses--perhaps 80 are HTs--and the fact that I was way too busy with other things. In our climate we bury the bud unions--though the rose I lost was an own root HT rose that was always small.

Yep, these polar winters certainly weed out the feeble ones! My hope is that I lost the worst of the weaklings last year and the rest will survive this year! I do have several on order so I've got replacements if they don't.

Just watched a Paul Zimmerman video about that subject yesterday on YouTube. He said it's not the cold temps but the wind that gets them. It made a lot of sense when he explained it and made some good suggestions.

I *think this is the one:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HeyWns-IjlE

I always thought down here in Southeast it was the cold- warm- cold-wet that did them in...

Adrianne

Here it seems to be 'the number' - the lowest temperature reading of the winter. It isn't wind because we don't really get wind. Anybody who has spent time somewhere the wind can blow for hundreds of miles without an obstacle understands wind as an element. There are mountain tops here where that happens, but not in the civilized valleys. It also doesn't seem to be temperature swings because the damage follows 'the number' and doesn't change if there has been a lot ups and downs or just cold.

This year we got down to -12F, and that is the sort of damage I'm expecting. Bonica, White Cap, Earth Song, and all the other wanna-be hardy roses will die back to at least the snowline. The bamboo is having a hard time. The once bloomers and the Explorers won't care, neither will most of the perennials.

The really curious part of this winter, is that the newspaper is claiming this was the coldest February on record. Buried deep in the article is the disclaimer that they lost the records from 1993 to 2000. Since 93 and 94 were the winters we were flirting with zone 3, it strikes me as cheating.

I would suggest to just pull it back from the bush when you think it's a problem and leave it on the ground until you're sure it's safe. If it turns cold, you have it there to put back around the bush.

As everyone has said, practices for winter protection or the lack thereof differ widely among gardeners. My personal rule of thumb is that I pull off the protection in spring when conditions approximate those in which I put on the protection, and I make sure to put on the protection LATE in the season. In most places, including the east coast I think, the moisture in the spring is as big a danger as anything in the winter you're protecting against. My temperature range for putting on protection is when the HIGHs for the day don't get above 20, so the same applies in taking it off. As long as your highs most days stay above 20, I'd go ahead and take it off. Even though you can get a late frost that would nip early leaves, by the time the leaves are out you shouldn't have any protection on anyway, so it's best to let the rose warm up at a natural pace along with the rest of the soil.

Of course things may differ in your zone, but I think many of us think roses can't handle the cold as well as they often can. Even my hybrid teas and teas are fine as long as the highs are above 20 and the lows not into the single digits.

Cynthia

Thanks, all! I did pull it back far, and it's a good thing I did. It was keeping things quite moist and it's been downright warm since that last cold night.

I think next year I'll probably put it on right before the super-cold nights and pull it back after them, just to be safe. I didn't put it on until we were solidly into winter, but the really bad nights were so few that I should probably not leave it on as many weeks as I did.

So far, I don't have more canker showing than normal, so that part is good!

Glad this worked for you to pull it off now , and it sounds like you've learned some good things for your yard and protection toward next year.

Cynthia