I completely agree with Cynthia. I have had protection other than snow cause disease, I never remove climbers from their support and lay them down (it has been suggested to me,) and I try to grow roses that are hardy here. By hardy I mean the canes survive the winter without getting dieback, since I have mostly climbers. What are you growing?

I will admit to wanting Susan Louise to grow and flourish for me. I failed over an eight year period with three different plants. In one of my more protected rose beds, with every damned protection method, even to building it's own little greenhouse for it.
The only thing that worked was moving it inside for winter, but it/they didn't take well to two translplants a year.

Mike,

Cynthia hit the nail squarely on the head in her comments above. Read her words of wisdom over and over...let them be ingrained in your thoughts.

If you strive to grow the most winter hardy of the HT type roses you like (which I do too), winterize them to the best of your ability....you've done all that you can do! Try new methods every year on some bushes to see which works best. Time will sort out the best route to go.

Don't agonize over black canes. They come, even with the best winter protection. Be happy over what survived that wouldn't have with no/inadequate protection.

For example, my Julia Child bushes would die to the ground with no protection. This year, with generous protection, I have good canes pruned to 10" lengths with tons of shoots coming on. They should put on a good show.

As you learn which varieties of roses of our preferred tender classes respond the BEST to winter protection (some, even with the best protection are not worth the effort.....there are tons that do, thank God), your garden will become a beautiful sight to see. It's a time consuming, trial and error procedure, finding who they are, but the joy of roses is not only the beautiful, fragrant blooms, but a!so the difficulty encountered finding the ones that do the best under our winterization system.

Although it is a daunting challenge to manage a rose garden up North because of the extra work involved, the rewards and satisfaction that this hard challenge confers, people who grow roses in warmer, easier climates cannot experience!

You said you can't win. Yes you have. A winner never quits a quitter never wins. Hang in there.

My Good as Gold was protected with mulch and leaves and seemed that survived winter well...it was giving signs of beautiful and healthy leaf buds from bottom to top but then they sucumbed to that super cold late February...it broke my heart seeing all black canes afterwards... :(

Every winter is different, of course, but you should always expect to lose some cane. I don't think it can be helped. I do know several people who wrap their climber canes in burlap for the winter. This can help a lot with dehydration but if you get sub zero temps it probably won't stop die back. I think you have to except that your climbers will take some set back every year but they should still give you a lovely bloom anyway.

Thank you. You all make very good sense and are very encouraging......I will take some pics for you. I was disappointed that many canes died, but very HAPPY that the actual plant and roots made it! I even have a few I only had to cut a couple of canes all the way to the ground, but most were at least 2 inches high up alive and my Julia Child as Mike sea's actually had all the canes left over healthy and thriving at least 2 feet high!

What does one do from here after trimming off the dead canes?

Do we need to fertilize now and with what?

I did mulch them thick and since I I never buried them deep enough, all the mulch on top of the roots and grafted parts make up for the lack of depth. They are covered pretty good and will stay that way as if they are buried..I raised all the soil level around them so now I have higher raised beds..

Will take some pics of mines and let you know the names if I saved the tags!

Mike

Mike,

You actually did very well, believe me.

The easiest fertilizer is Miracle Grow, Rose and Flower, slow release Shake and Feed pellets. They come in a purple plastic bottle 4.5# for about $13.00_at the mega home improvement joints.

Once now and again in July. That's it for the year regarding fertilization of your roses. Apply it above the roses' root zones, not all over the bed. Scratch it into the soil a wee bit.... Get it UNDER the mulch, move it aside a bit first, apply the pellets, then return the mulch to where it was. Water it in a bit. Same procedure again in July.

Some folks put a small amount on top of the mulch after the soil application is done, to feed the mulch on the assumption that as the mulch begins to decay, it robs the soil of nitrogen for a while at first. I say just watch the rose foliage, if it is rich, deep green this step is unnecessary.

There are 101 other rose fertilizing programs, but none as easy and successful as this one.

Make it easy on yourself...you have: Black Spot, Cercospora Leaf Spot, Downy Mildew, Powdery Mildew, RRD, Rose Mosaic Virus, Japanese Beetles, Thrips, Aphids, Diabolical Spider Mites, and the dreaded Rose Midge Fly to deal with. They'll keep you busy enough.

Moses

Moses, thanks a lot. Sounds pretty easy to feed to me. That's what I like.

Here are a few pics of my roses...I guess I did't do that bad. Barbra Streisand, Pope John Paul, Ebb and Tide, Julia, Sea Roses a,d others of which I can't think of the name right now.

Barbara Striesand

I think Steel something rose. Or something Steel rose. Very fragrant!

Forgot this one but only one cane made it and the crown.

Forgot but also very fragrant

Julia Child

Mike,

They look great!

Another good thing to remember is as a bush matures it gets more winter hardy. If you have to give a particular variety extra special attention when it is a new rose you will be well rewarded up the road. More and more of the canes will survive each winter, with longer lengths making it too. Don't be tempted to slack off with protection over winter with these older bushes or they will start regressing.

Own root roses, particularly the coat hanger wire stemmed ones we get in liner pots from the online nurseries, show significant improvement with winter hardiness as they mature. Give these roses special attention over their first winters. Lots of mulch, high and wide, will do wonders for them.

May I direct your attention to the Kordes roses that have, through extensive testing in the ADR trials, received the ADR designation. This means that they are very winter hardy and disease resistant. My Earth Angel and Pink Enchantment (both gallons from Chamblee's, planted just last spring, 2016), survived their first, this past winter, with NO protection (as a nervous test on my part), and came through just about tip hardy! Beautiful roses, too; Earth Angel being particularly fragrant, also.

Give the ADR Kordes roses a try. You will not be disappointed. Make sure they are designated as ADR roses. Not all Kordes roses are ADR, but quite a number are.

Enjoy your roses!

Moses

Moses as always has given you terrific advice, and I think for zone 6 you have done a fabulous job to have that much surviving cane. I'm presuming that your pictures were before you finished your pruning? The first and second pictures after the Steel something (if you overwintered Stainless Steel I'm coming over to shake your hand...) have one or two black canes that still need some attention. There are also some reddish brown canes that will bear watching over the next few weeks. If you see black splotches starting to spread on the canes, or growth at the tips that fizzles out after a few weeks, that means something on part of the cane is dying and you need further pruning beyond that death. Again, it's nothing you did - just that sometimes the rose disguises winter damage for a while and you have to monitor them.

I would keep fertilizing to a minimum as Moses suggests and just make sure they have enough water if it has been a dry spring. Otherwise, just keep up with at least a little mulch to make sure the ground doesn't get bare (in your region you want to keep the mulch away from your canes) to keep in the moisture. You could sprinkle some alfalfa hay as a supplement to other fertilizers since roses like alfalfa, and you can find this cheaply at pet stores if you don't buy it in 50 pound bales like I do. Just make sure to scratch it lightly under your mulch or "fluff" it up so it doesn't get hard and crusty when it rains.

Looks great - you're an excellent rose "parent".

Cynthia

Can I just get some clarification about how deep the rose is planted? Are the roots completely covered with soil or mulch?

Also, I usually get some dead canes on certain roses, it's just what happens here but you will be surprised at how fast they grow.

Moses, thank you very very much. Your advice and time means wonders..I will look into those roses as suggested even try one..

Nippstress, how are you? I appreciate your input too. Yes that is the 'Stainless Steel' rose and I can tell you I love not only the fragrance, but the way the new leaves grow in. Like a deep red burgundy that turns almost brilliant and florescent as it opens. The prettiest looking new growth I have ever seen. So you are welcomed to come and shake my hand..I was concerned about this one. I did not prune that one as much because I couldn't tell the difference between the good one or bad. BUt now I can tell. I will take a second pic.

You know, come to think of it, I kind of like my roses short and full as compared to tall and lanky of tall..I am thinking that cutting them back is not so bad after all.

Alfalfa? Hum, I will take a look at that. Was confused about one remark.

" (in your region you want to keep the mulch away from your canes) to keep in the moisture. " Are you saying that I need to pull the mulch away from the crown?

When I originally buried my crowns, I planted them ground level instead of deeper so what I did to make up for that was pile dirt on the crown and then mulch to make them as if they are buried deeper literally raising the soil bed higher without burying them deeper.

Altorama....The roots are completely buried by 'soil'...What I did was bury them as deep as they were in the pots they came in. At least what I thought I should of done. So basically the tip of the crown in just about an inch or two under the soil level, not deep enough forcing be to pile more soil on top then mulch.

Cynthia,

Did you mean to say alfalfa pellets, as in horse feed in the 50# bags, or alfalfa hay as you wrote it up above?

A lot of rosarians around here scratch in about a cup or two of alfalfa pellets for each mature rose bush in spring. Alfalfa hay is not used here that I know of, but I don't see why it couldn't...they're both alfalfa, just loose or compressed being the difference.

Moses