I had a couple people telling me to rip out what they believed was a dead rose bush. I don't even remember the name of this bush, but I wanted to give it time. It was not this past winter, but the horrid Midwest winder of 2013-2014. It look really dead, but I said 'No, giving it a chance.' I did and it ended up doing this:

Okay, I don't know why it put this photo sideways on here, but you get my drift. This season, the bush is getting wider & taller & I am thrilled.

This came out of the ground July 15, 2014:

Spectra

What Mark?

Oh I see it. Very sturdy & healthy looking. How does it look thus far this year?

I've had this happen lots of times. I had a Snowfire that never leafed out until mid-June. It doesn't like cool weather at all. I had a Double Delight that I thought was dead so I bought a new one. When I finally got around to swapping them out the DD in the ground had sprouted a few new shoots. So I dug it up and potted it and it came back stronger than the new one which eventually died. I still have the potted one! It's really hard to tell sometimes but these last two winters have been very cruel and some things just couldn't muster the strength to go on :(.

Ooh, Seil - that really helps, because Snowfire is on the Death Watch list, as I've not seen hide nor hair of anything. It's in a cool part of the yard and it has been unseasonably cool, so maybe I won't do any pulling of tags till even later in June than usual. And you're right - Double Delight is one that always is a late sprouter and I've usually assumed it's dead. In my case, it is very weak on own roots and just barely has a viable plant even late in the season, so I may have to add a grafted version.
Mark - cool Spectra, and that's one I drool over, as I haven't been able to get it to survive my zone. The fact that you can grow it in zone 4 gives me hope, and I may try it again next year.
Nick - great survival of your very healthy rose from our horrible Midwest winters. We've had particularly brutal ones these last two years, so the remaining roses are the true survivors!

Cynthia

nickjoseph and nippstress: The name of the rose is Spectra, and that is how it looked yesterday.

In 2014 it emerged around July 15 after that brutal winter. It did not flower, and was a weakling in 2014. Now it has 12 basal breaks, and is back to normal.

Spectra is a large flowered climber; in France it is considered a hybrid tea if memory serves me correctly. Usually we cannot grow large flowered climbers in the Midwest. I planted two of these elsewhere in town and they died within 2-years.

Behind my office where this is grown I have a microclimate that is probably more like Zone 7, with a southern exposure. I have buildings on the West, my shorter building on the North, and a longer one on the East that block the wind. In other words this rose bed is in the inside of a U facing south. I planted a small bed of 5-roses about 15 years ago when I moved in and they grow amazingly well. I have had almost no disease issues in this bed.

The Prince gets 4 feet wide, and 5-6 feet tall. Spectra when it comes up timely like it is this year usually gets 8-9 feet tall. About 8-years ago I put a cane in the ground and it grew into a rose bush (Polarstern).

If you have any tips how to post pics, I'd appreciate it because it is hit or miss for me. I posted pics on this site more than a decade ago, and even 4-5 years ago on the fruit and orchard subsite, when this site had a different interface. Now, I cannot figure out how to reliably post pics within a post.

Here is a link to an extremely old photo of this rose in my garden from circa 2001: Spectra

Just gorgeous, Mark, and thanks for the info about the zone 7 pocket you have her in. Now I don't feel so bad, though I did plant mine on the south side of my house that's effectively zone 6. I may still give it another try - where did you get yours?

As for pictures, all I do now with Houzz is click on the photo button below the reply box and WHEN it works, it'll show me my desktop, and I simply select the photo I want to post off my desktop, up to four in one reply or message. That's of course WHEN it works. For some reason, it won't work at all on my home computer - I simply click the photo button and it does nothing - but it works at home on my husband's computer.

Cynthia

I can't be certain where I bought Spectra. It may have come from a nursery called Tate's that stopped doing mail order about 6-years ago.

I keep getting messages that I have too many characters in my post; I resize the photos, and the # of characters changes, but no matter how tiny I still can't get them to reliably post. Anyone have a solution to this issue?

Delete the cookies and temp internet files and the cache on gardenweb houzz and history then try .

I thought we could post ten photos at a time. I know I've posted more than four.
I'm glad your Royal Dane is coming back from the dead, Cynthia--could it be a zombie rose? Be careful around its thorns-ha. Diane

I can attest to this because my Ingrid Bergman just had a cane coming up. Now I am just waiting for Peace to do her thing. It kind of make me a bit regretful for having shovel pruned the other roses I thought was dead earlier this spring. But nothing regretful anyways.

Glad your roses are coming back from the dead. Most people don't realize how long it takes when the winter has been so bad. I dug up a wonderful red rose that I just loved last year when I figured it was dead. I should have given it a good 2 months more. I did not know at the time. I feel terrible that I didn't give it a chance.

Well Diane, you know in Macbeth there were a lot of Royal Danes (well OK, Thanes) walking around as ghosts, so you never know. I'll be happy if it merely stands, not walks.
Good to know more than 4 photos is possible, and sometimes I can, sometimes not. The Houzz photo system is nothing if not picky.

Don't regret too much digging roses earlier than needed in the spring JJ & Donna - gardening, particularly with roses, is a process of learning. We can almost always get second chances, and our gardens become stronger and more beautiful as we learn.

Cynthia