I do fruit starts in my greenhouse and skip dormancy. If you can't keep them totally dormant in low light situations (like garages) it's far preferable. Although many of the fruits don't go to complete dormancy if kept warm and lit, they often experience leaf-fall and enter a sort of cyclic semi-dormancy, and you should adjust watering to compensate for that, but like said never let them dry out to the point of death and in spring they'll kick into overdrive.

Four days ago I unwrapped the 40 plus roses that were winter protected using the experimental system described in the initial post and as shown in the images. The snow is still not completely melted in shaded areas and in fact I had to dig some of the roses out a little in order to get the bags and straw off of them. Today I did a light tip pruning to tidy them up. The outcome of my dry mulch with plastic bag cover winter protection experiment? A very much improved cane survival rate. Almost all of the roses came through with minimal damage to the canes they had when I wrapped them. I even have over a foot of cane on both Evelyn and Jayne Austin, both of whom have died to the crown every winter for the last ten years using my old system. As we all know, this has been one of the harshest winters on record; for my area, the coldest in over 50 years. So I think I would have to say that the experiment was a success. While pruning today, I noticed bud nodes that were beginning to swell even though the temperatures are still below freezing most nights and in the low forties to low fifities in the afternoons. In addition, my yard and garden cleanup has gone much quicker and easier than ever before. I have dry straw and leaves largely stacked in bags, rather than sodden and half frozen waiting to thaw around the roses before I can remove it and haul it away. The beds are cleaned out and the dark soil can warm in the sun and thaw more quickly. I will still have to wait another couple of weeks before I can spray the plants with dormant oil, but I'm at least two weeks ahead of normal with garden cleanup and have large healthy canes on almost all of my roses for the first spring since I moved to this cold climate. End of report. Cheers, Rick

A few years I've left some canna tubers in the ground over the winter in zone 6 (typically varieties I wasn't very interested in saving). I think I got a good number to resprout and grow just one time (the bed was in an open location). It doesn't surprise me that people have success in a southern exposure up against the house or similar protected location in zone 6 (I've done well with Amorphophallus konjac and Nandina in such a spot). It'd also help to have exceptional drainage, and a covering of mulch would be a good idea too. I wouldn't depend on even this setting in the case of rare/expensive varieties though.

Andrea, Not all are sibs. Being they are FFO seedlings we really don't put any notes in the books. I think about 1/2 of them are sibs on the pollen side. Of course we made some seeds crossing amongst them and those are noted. swontgirl, Hmm guess I was alittle tired and brain dead! Yes we planted them indoors by the end of November 2008. I'll have to post a picture of the size of the plants! Julia, They are saying we're going to have below normal temps at times, but the temps will see-saw from cold to mild to cold all winter with more snow likely. Wish we could get darker and different colors than we are...oh well that gives us another trait to pursue! Thanks for the comments folks.