Don't have many, have yet to see but I find the same with grapes...lots of cane death! I suspect they couldn't handle the drastic temperature swings up and down several times this past winter.

Yeah, I'm guessing temperature extremes must have been the problem. I think we got some really cold weather before we got snow, then we had some really warm weather in the middle of the winter, and some more really cold weather once the snow was half melted. They look hideous, but I'm planning on waiting a good long while before I do anything with them...you never know!

The ones that did the worst for me were all in the bed up near the house..so they were probably without snow the most, as the bed by the house usually melts quite quickly. The odd thing, is that one of the roses(Purple Pavement) is on the side of the house that always has the most snow and holds the snow for a long time...what happened there? Maybe the cold snap before we got snow? That side of the house gets snow mold sometimes, I'm wondering if that did a number on it too.

I posted about this on the other site as well and there are a lot of people who have roses that seem to have died over the winter and most are mystified about it. We didn't get the same temperature extremes as the prairies did, so that's not the problem with my roses. My best guess would be the cold weather that we had after the snow melted this spring. I'll wait a little longer and see if any come back.

Still extreme weather...little less perhaps.

marcia, I am so sorry to hear this! I didn't have a lot of luck with the Morden roses (Morden Blush and Morden Sunrise) before, but the John Davis that I planted last year had NO die back whatsoever and is growing very well already! The Hope for Humanity rose had some die back but is doing fairly well.

However, the Morden Belle is something that I am thinking of getting rid of.... over the last 3 years, it had significant die back every year, and also the new branches tend to flop a lot. The roses were not spectacular either. So, in the end, it just survived but not thrived.

Since these are all in my yard, I think that it's more to do with the species than me... LOL!

Wayne, I am curious to hear about your Double Knockout, as I had a hedge of it in my zone 5 garden before, and it grew as tall as 5 feet and it was an unstoppable blooming machine! Do they really survive in zone 3 then?

Marcia, I think that your theory that it was the cold weather after the warm temperature had a lot to do with it. Isn't it such a pain to garden in our FAR NORTH location!? Sigh.....

I went around and cut back most of them today. Some were showing some signs of life. Morden Sunrise is coming back from the roots, as is Champlain. There were a few leaf buds on Marie Bugnet and Blanc Double de Coubert. The White Kosters show what might potentially be buds but they don't look promising. Delicata has some buds and there a few on Martin Frobisher. The only one of my roses that looks normal is Therese Bugnet.

ostrich, yes the D.K. did very well for a couple of seasons, I think that I juiced it to much and we had rain in the fall with nice temps then -20's C. That = DEAD. My Roseraie De L' Hay, Therese Bugnet, Marie Bugnet, , Spinosisima and Pavement series of roses that I have are cane hardy. Got Hazeldean and Prairie Peace (thanks weeper) and am looking forward to seeing them take over some turf.

Wayne, thanks for the tips! I just looked up these roses - wow, that Prairie Peace rose looks amazing! I wonder where I can get that from?

One of these days, I may just tear up my Morden Belle and then I am done with the Morden roses... LOL! I probably will replace it with Therese Bugnet then.... thanks again!

There is a woman in Rocky Mountain House that sells them(or at least sold them in the past). If you use the search function on this site, you should be able to find the thread where I give her email(search prairie peace rose). Your best bet might be to try and track someone down that has some to divide. I had a bunch of suckers that I gave to Wayne, but that was all of them, so I probably won't have anymore for a few years.

Thanks so much, weeper! :-)

End of summer update. All the roses came back, some weakly, others much stronger. One of the White Kosters ended up blooming a bit, as did Blanc Double de Coubert. Delicata grew a couple of weak canes, and JP Connell has one floppy one - it didn't bloom this summer but that's nothing new. Morden Sunrise is fine, as is Marie Bugnet and Champlain. The only one that never came back was The Fairy, which was a shame because it was in my granddaughter's garden. But it's zone 4 or 5 so it was a bonus to have it for a few years.

Marcia, thank you for the update, I'm glad your roses came back. All mine came back strong, however I did not get many blooms on Emily Carr, perhaps due to toomuch alfalfa tea. Winnipeg Parks and Rugelda came back very strong for me, however WP has quite a bit of blackspot this year.

This yearI planted some of the same roses that you also have, I hope they come back strong.

I will try to protect my roses better this winter if we get some of that cold weather without good snow cover. I feel that I put such an investment in these roses - not just monetary - that I should take better care of them!