Have you had a lot of rain recently? That's what does it for us. It seems the chinas and (hybrid) teas trigger dormancy from a lack of rain more than cold temperatures. So wet falls, which are very normal here, really mess them up.

That's the strange thing, I depend on October to be our driest month and force my teas into semi-dormancy (that's as much as they ever go dormant, lol). And we're in an official drought! It's been so hot and dry I've had to water my perennial beds twice this month, and some of the roses get some supplemental water from that, but most are bone dry. It's coming to the point where I'm *needing* to water the roses, against my better judgment, in order to keep all that new growth from wilting! There are buds about to open. Grrrrr.

Catch 22...the new growth will die now if I don't water; if I do water there'll be MORE new growth to die this winter, lol.

Mine are all doing the same thing. We've had some nights in the 40's as well, but out Temps are actually going back up today! What's the deal? I'm praying mine will all harden off before we get too cold as well. I have a feeling it's going to be a cold and wet winter this year, maybe some snow. I didn't like our mild winter that we had last year.

That's the rub. Chinas, Teas and their close relatives are MUCH more dependent upon water to stimulate growth than "heat", and the lack of water to trigger shut-down than "cold". We'd not had rains, and even though they were all kept well watered, they were going summer dormant with rather sparse foliage and very little bloom. Dump a quarter of an inch of rain and they have exploded! Now, they are warning to expect between one and two inches tomorrow evening through Friday mid day and they should really begin growing and blooming. Fortunately, the first 300 gallon rain barrel gets delivered this afternoon! But, that's what makes them so suitable for Mediterranean type climates. With little rain, they shut down into summer dormancy, but when rains come, they are glorious! If you have real "winters" when the rains hit, they get really slammed. Burst of new, soft growth just ripe for freezes.

Kim, you're such a ray of sunshine, lol. I knew all this (but zone denial is incurable), and fully realize I'm not in a good climate for teas/chinas, but I can't understand why I have so much growth in a drought year. October is ALWAYS our driest month, and I've been able to count on it to put my tender babies to sleep...or at least make them drowsy, lol. But this year has been even *drier* than normal, which is why I can't understand the growth spurt. We did get a scant 1/2 inch of rain at the beginning of the month (after about the same amount for the whole month of Sept), but not a drop since. I'm wondering if it's just a reaction to that paltry rain plus the cooler nights after the horrible hot/dry summer.

We can always find something to complain about: last Spring I was wishing for the rain to stop long enough for me to garden!

Just for giggles, here's our forecast for the next few days. Temps averaging 20+ degrees above normal....no rain.

Same story here - Indian Summer in full swing after record breaking heat that didn't step down till late September. Luckily no drought this year & good weekly rains continue. Still weeding & planting, so appreciate the cold's on hold. Never brave enough to grow true Teas & Chinas due to Winter & Spring wild temp swings so common here, too. (That 80F to 20F can occur in a single day.) Usually select roses cane hardy to zone 5 to hedge my bets, having zone pushed in the past. (Tend to become attached to plants & don't want them to suffer.) But - this year brought in various Noisettes (Cato's Cluster, Crepuscule, Reve d'Or, Jaune Desprez, Setzer) & kept them potted for planting next season. Can barely keep up with pinching their buds, and gave up entirely with Setzer. Wondering how these will fare short & long term, even in spots protected from prevailing Winter winds...

Fully empathize with your Catch 22 predicament. Perhaps you can water sparingly now - just enough to keep the new growth from wilting - enjoy the current bloom crop but pinch any growth/buds after that - and the coming cold will creep up gradually, having just been delayed? We can all hope whims of weather will ultimately be kind ones. Best of luck to you & your roses! Sue

In the same area as Fig, but with more years of teas and chinas. I lost a lot of teas several years ago, but not many noisettes.
This year I have the same roses and my old noisettes (not tea noisettes) have been blooming for over a month, a very dry month at that.

I wish someone would grow roses in transparent soil so we could see what is hapening to the feeder roots when we get so much rainfall that trees fall over in the forrest.

At least I don't feel so lonely now, lol. It seems to be happening all over the upper South, regardless of the amount of rain in the area. Mother Nature is such a joker...

I am experimenting with Teas and Noisettes this year and have observed the same thing. I am new to gardening so I am only just starting to notice my local weather patterns so I don't know what is typical for rain, but it was really warm this summer, September and October.

I have Teas and Chinas here, too, but I've stopped worrying about them. Some of the ones planted in the ground get hit hard by Winter, but grow so much during Spring through Autumn that I treat them like Buddleias.* For example, "Bermuda Spice" was cut back to a few inches above the mulch line after its first Winter, then to about 12" above the mulch line after its second Winter. Both following growing seasons saw it reach about five feet in height and width. This Spring it kept a few longer lengths of cane, and is now about six feet tall and five feet wide. "Bermuda Spice" is in a rather unprotected site, but it gets virtually all-day sun. This, I think, allows for it to rebound easily.

Some of my other Chinas/Teas are planted against a house facing south. In this rather protected area, most have far less Winter damage to anything other than the tips of growth that didn't ripen in time for Winter. In this respect, they have about as much Winter damage as do my Bourbons and Austins. I have 'Napoleon' planted in this area, and while it was hit hard its first Winter, it has been growing and growing since then. Right now, the longest canes leaning against the house are about a foot over my head -- I'm 5'11" tall. The main cane at the base has a diameter greater than a US $0.25 coin. I imagine I'll remove between two and three feet of length after Winter -- if not for damage, then to simply reduce lankiness.

About half of my other Chinas/Teas I keep as pot-pets. Last Winter was their first, and they spent it in my enclosed-but-drafty back porch with windows. They sort of just "stopped" -- some dropped leaves but some didn't, and stayed that way until I brought them out in late March. The only growth I lost on any of them was due to not being watered enough, and that was replaced during the growing season.

I'm coming to learn that the Chinas/Teas I have are not quite as averse to being "pruned" harshly by Winter as many seem to say -- so long as what gets cut back doesn't have more than one season's worth of growth invested in it, and so long as the growing season provides them with ample heat, sun, water, and soil nutrients for regrowth. Also, if you're thinking of trying them, I'd suggest getting them in Spring and babying them in pots for their first growing season. Then you could plant them in Autumn, putting them in the ground more deeply than other roses, buring a few inches of cane. Or you could overwinter them inside somewhere, making for bigger plants to go in the ground the following year. Admittedly, trying any of this family as climbers would be a pipe dream here -- RIP, 'Jaune Desprez' -- but they seem to be doing OK as sort of the rose equivalents of Buddleia bushes.

*For those of you not familiar with what we do with Buddleia bushes here, they're traditionally cut back to between 12" and 24" in late Winter, then left to "go wild" through the growing season, being just fed and watered and dead-headed but otherwise left alone.

:-)

~Christopher

So glad you have not worked yourself to death, Christopher.

Well, I'm still doing six-day weeks, usually hitting 60 hours per week. Last week I had my first instance of two days in a row off, and spent both days FINALLY getting 50 roses planted at the cemetery. I still have six left, but don't know just yet where to put them. In the meantime, my garden is alive but overgrown, and really missing the daily coffee grounds from Starbucks I had to stop collecting back in late May. Now that things are finally slowing down, I may resume that -- until the snow stops me -- now that I have my "work area" cleared of all the potted roses for the cemetery. It's really rather amazing how one man's garbage (i.e. the coffee grounds) makes my roses grow so much so quickly. Looking out there the other day, I see that not putting down grounds for five months has resulted in about a 2" drop in the soil level in the beds. Maybe I'll get some mulch delivered to fill it in in the meantime........

:-)

~Christopher

No Catch 22 here imo. Let them and help them grow as much as they want while they can, regardless if some new growth gets burned down by the cold. The more they grow the stronger their root system becomes, the stronger their root system becomes the more they grow and the more they can recover if they are struck by cold winter conditions, in which case they will need some spring pruning. They are not fruit trees where you would be worried of loosing this or next season's crop or letting disease creep in nor are they naturally cold dormant plants where you wouldn't want to encourage out of season sap flow.

I grow many teas and chinas. The only time I had issues with dieback was with the polar vortex when it went to zero and below for two successive nights. That killed all the above ground growth on most of the teas and chinas. But they came back. So anyone who is in a zone where it does not get that cold in the winter should try growing them.

Christopher, how much coffee grounds did you put down each day?

I collected one Starbucks' daily output via one of these garbage cans, of which I bought two. I'd stop by daily to switch out the full one for the empty one. Essentially, that can became their grounds-and-filter disposal. Most days the can was about 3/4 full. I'd bring the grounds home, dump into a leaky wheelbarrow, pull out filters, scoop grounds into a bucket, and carry to where I'd be applying them that day. Basically, I'd start at one part of the garden and keep going until a fresh new layer went down, then move on to the next part of the garden. I'd also give a top-layer to my pots. Filters were tossed elsewhere for composting if I didn't have a need for them lining the insides of newly-potted plants.

Then I changed jobs, and just couldn't make the daily trip, so I stopped. I may resume again in a few days.

:-)

~Christopher

Wow, what devotion. My coffee shop near my house leaves bags of used grounds for people to take.

Do you have an estimate of how thick of layer you laid down or number of cups of grounds for each rose?

I started out by putting down a thin layer -- just enough to cover the mulch. Then I wanted to see what happened if I added thicker layers. Up to two inches, a crust would form, and any water would mostly roll off rather than seep down. More than two inches, the crust would crack like a dry riverbed, and water would go straight down. It wouldn't take long for the grounds to be teeming with life, and after about three months I'd be back adding a fresh layer to where I started. Pots I keep on the ground would have earthworms seeking them out, entering through the drainage holes, and they'd keep the soil turning as they made their way to the top to feed on the coffee grounds.

:-)

~Christopher

Thank you Christopher for sharing your observations about the crusting. It sounds like you cannot overdo it by applying too much since 2 inch layer sounds like a lot. I am trying not to overdo it with fertilizers, but it sounds like I can just use coffee grounds like compost.