We are in Chicagoland. We do get hot and humid here 90+ F degrees and down to below 0 for extended periods, this year 14 below! Maybe I will try not just snapping off the flowers, and cutting like the suggestion said. I do have older varieties: Hansa and Blanc double de coubert. Maybe they need a pruning? But I also have wildberry breeze and wild spice and neither have much rebloom. They are in mostly full sun, 8+ hours a day. I will try supplementing with water. I usually do not do this unless it is VERY hot (above 90). I also fertilize after the first flush but this does not seem to work. Do the "explorer" varieties which I noticed have rugosa parentage, have more rebloom? Thanks for your help.

This is what I just put in another post about rugosas - but in your zone, it is even more applicable! I live in southern NH, zone 5, and while our winters have been getting milder, we still have months of hard freeze, and usually lots of snow and/or ice storms. "Another one to consider is Polareis - lots of good pics at Helpmefind. Mine is in the middle of its September flush - the third one. The first one in May to early June is spectacular, lasting nearly a month, covering the 8' X 6' shrub with sprays of pink blooms to the point that the foliage is nearly obscured. Last year it had a fourth round in a mild stretch of late fall - still had buds in December! Foliage is exceptionally clean, never any disease. There is moderate fragrance, and while the blooms come in huge one-stem=bouquet sprays, the buds don't all open. I have had luck pruning off the little outside buds to create a more controlled spray of opening and open buds and blooms. If I could only have one rose, this would be it." Mine came from Northcreek Farm, Phippsburg, Maine, from Suzy Verrier who is the patron saint of rugosa rose growers. HEr out of print book on the subject has gorgeous photos. If you are anywhere near Bath, you should make the trip to her farm. She knows about growing roses in cold zones.

The rose I would recommend is 'Dart's Dash', it will stay about 1m, has bloom on it all summer (more so if you dead head) and fantastic hips for the winter. Another is 'Will Alderman', the flowers less blowzy than 'Dart's Dash' and held above the bush better. But, alas I don't know where you can buy it. Then there is 'Polareis', mine is covered with bloom now and the flowers are much longer lasting than the other Rugosas which seems strange because the flowers are very delicate looking. It does not set hips and has the worst thorns of all my roses.

woolywoof, your availability of hardy roses probably has more to do with being in Canada than being in zone 4. If I head to nurseries in zone 4 New York, the situation is likely to be even more dire than it is here. Lack of availability of roses that do what I want roses to do is probably part of the reason I became so interested in rooting cuttings. Several wonderful roses are probably better known as pass along plants than in the nursery trade. This unfortunately doesn't make me a very good source of information as to where you should get your roses. I've bought more roses from Mike Lowe than any other source. He's in Nashua. Is Mike still in the nursery business? I don't know. Pickering, as mentioned, is a good source. I know Paul has gotten a bunch of his roses from Spring Valley in Wisconsin. I've heard nothing but good things about Spring Valley. I've often wanted to order from Corn Hill in New Brunswick, but never come up with a big enough order to make it work out. Corn Hill is Robert Osborne's nursery. If you don't have his book "Hardy Roses" you should. You should also have Suzanne Verrier's books. You want to avoid the nurseries that ship little twigs. For the money nurseries charge, you want them to send you a real plant. I'd like to be able to recommend Ashdown, but I've never ordered from him. Oddly enough, most of my recent purchases have come from Sequoia. Certainly Ralph Moore has no reason to specialize in hardy for the northeast roses, but he does have some neat oddments that I can't get anywhere else. He ships little twigs, but at least the price reflects this.