Brown pith is NOT a reliable indicator of cane damage. Many roses inherently have brown or beige pith at the cane center.

How cold did it get, exactly??

It got down to 10-11 degrees F, several days. Coldest I've known in the South.

It was not just brown but kind of mushy too. The canes looked damaged to me so I vengeance-pruned them. Plus they were only leafing at the bottom or in select spots.

EDI is down to the ground now, as shown above.

I wonder how long it would take for it to grow again and bloom.

Pith looks "mushy", that's what it is. I strongly suspect you pruned off much more than you needed to. But no matter, it will grow back.

Ive had Belinds Dream for multiple winters in sub-zero temps with no bad effects requiring little pruning for cane death. I dont know when you normally prune, but it seems way too early tof 6a/b. Perhaps others from your zone and area will pipe in with their pruning schedule for comparison. Honestly, 10-11+ F isnt that cold for most roses unless theyre teas, but it does depend.

@Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley

I heard in my area pruning should be in January. So I did. I also thought that mushy brown in the middle means the cane must be cut until I hit white fresh middle. So I did that too.

Hopefully I'll get some flowers this season. I don't mind if the bush is short as long as there are flowers. :)

I asked about this a while back because i had so much black cane.

consensus advice was to wait for early spring and to avoid pruning until then

Artist, when I lived outside of Nashville ( same zone as you ) I waited til later in February. February always brought and brings a cold snap especially around Valentine’s Day ( I don’t know why ! It just was always to coldest week I’d remember! )

We’d get ice storms , random snow , then like two weeks later tornado season would begin .

So I think I’d wait next year , so there is less trauma to your beautiful roses .

Thats the great thing about roses; theyre generally so forgiving and will try to live with just the smallest encouragement!

So what you are all saying is that now that my EDI is a small stump it will be OK even if I there's another cold snap and I must cu some more?

When I saw all that die back I was afraid the rot will advance too fast, so I cut off not realizing there could be some more die back from more frost.

Urgh, I still don't know what I am doing.

Artist, personally I would leave your roses as they are and wait for spring to reasse.

@Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA From what I understand, waiting until much later to prune is beneficial because now that you've pruned down to healthy live cane, that freshly cut area is completely exposed to further freezing temps, where before it had the above cane, even though cold damaged, to protect it from frost and wind, etc. I can't advise on when is a good time for you to prune because I'm in a much colder zone, but I definitely experience winter dieback here and you absolutely don't have to prune at the first signs of cold damage. It isn't going to hurt the rose to leave the damaged cane on there through the remainder of winter. Leave the roses alone for now until you're confident that the cold is completely gone in your area.

I doubt you lost the roses, even the one you cut down pretty hard.

The temptation is real!!! I have several with black canes that are generally pitiful looking and I just try not to look at them when I walk outside.

I'm about a state north of you and I've got some yellow forsithia buds encased in ice this week, so we are close but not there quiet yet. @Lilyfinch z9a Murrieta Ca has the right of it. We had ice three nights in a row this week and it's getting up in the 60s this weekend, but I'm betting on at least one more week of hard freezes before the end of the month.

I wouldn't worry too much about what you've done. If they don't grow back they weren't going to anyway. If they do it might just take a bit longer to put on some size.

Thank you all! That's my lesson this year: don't prune until most chance of further die back is gone. For whatever reason I was under the impression that pruning in my area must be done in January but now that I understand the logic, late February is more like it.

@Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA . Prune when the forsythia bloom. Usally mid to late February.

Artist,

I think this is a mistake that everyone does at first. I know we pruned too early for several years. In our climate we often get great weather in March and April so one looks at the dead on the roses and think it is a good idea to get started on them. I think it was only last year that we had finally learned our lesson and waited until the recommended Mother's Day date. In fact I have it on my calendar for May 15th as "Ok to trim roses".

@mmmm12COzone5 and @subk3,

Thank you both. I modified my rose calendar to reflect this change. Funny thing is I did have pruning right on VDay but the January schedule also said "prune roses."

I changed that because I may have copy-pasted from some calendar for a very mild climate like SoCal, I don't remember, but I think I am good to go for next year.

This year I am curious to see what this little EDI dwarf chopped to the ground will do. It's already leafing out.

I don't mind if it's short as long as it blooms a lot. :) Maybe the hard pruning will make it sturdier and all will have been worth it.

@Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA Coming from someone in a cold zone, pruning down to the level you have pictured shouldn’t affect you rose too terribly. Every Spring my Meilland roses die back to the ground and every summer they grow and bloom beautifully. As others have said, roses are tougher then we often give them credit for. I think we invest so much time, love, and money into our roses that many of us tend to baby them (guilty). 😋

With how much I've seen the advice about forsythia, you'd think everyone had one on every corner or something. I rarely see them where I live.

Google says z5-8 for Forsythia, Magpie. "Northern Gold" is z4 or z3. I don't think it was all over in Alaska, but it is here.

The common forsythia, Lynwood, Lynwood Gold, or whatever they are calling it this year, is flower bud hardy to -15°F. If winters usually get colder than that, it doesn't bloom. Non-blooming forsythia is pretty pointless. The hybrids, Northern Gold, Northern Sun, or whichever one I have, have hardiier flower buds. They also bloom earlier.

Magpie, I don't think I've ever seen one!

@Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR I think I've seen just one single one in my neighborhood (and I walk it constantly with my dog so I've got lots of time to notice). It is rather gangly and blooms sparsely for its large size, but I saw a glorious one in Kentucky, probably the best example of one I've ever seen. They're very pretty when in bloom but not much to look at afterwards, I think. I guess they're not very popular around my parts, from looking around I'd guess that the most popular flowering shrub in my area is the lilac.

没有问题，不低于零下15度没关系。如果你那里很冷，就不修剪，然后一个破盆去掉底部，包围根部，然后填土浇透水，春天去掉。No problem. It doesn't matter if it's not below minus 15 degrees. If you have a cold place, do not prune, then a broken pot to remove the bottom, surround the roots, then fill with soil and water, remove in the spring.

I think you might be too cold there, Magpie.

There are white and pink ’forsythia’ also if the vibrant yellow doesnt do it for you. abeliophyllum distichum “roseum“ I think is the name

Here in the northeast, the forsythias may not be on every corner, but it feels like it in spring. You can't miss them. Usually its the bright yellow variety.

Weve got forsythia and dogwood blooming now.

we’ve had a relatively mild and dry winter, aside from those couple of days.

Artist, here are some of mine that looked dead. they are all growing back from the ground already.

@jc_7a_MiddleTN

Very uplifting! Will you cut the brown canes?

Yes ill definitely cut out the brown/black canes.

Will probably wait another couple weeks.

The black ones are dead for sure. Some of the brown ones I’m not so sure just yet.

At my old house here in PA I had to sometimes cut own root roses to ground level after winter... They all grew back well and bloomed just fine...

@jim1961 Zone 6a Central Pa.

I wonder what the effects of hard pruning might be on flowers and canes. It was my understanding that after hard pruning, the rose bush may come back more sturdy and vigorous. is i true? What about flowering in the first season after hard pruning? Is that better in terms o bush coverage. I do understand the bush may be smaller since it was cut down so much but for the given bush size, I wonder about bloom coverage after such treatment.

Either way, I am curious to see what my heavily pruned Easy Does It and Belinda's Dream will do this season. It's already leafing back looking good but it's a stump now after all.

Just my own observation.. I used to always hard prune and shape in Tennessee. Sometimes bc of the cane damage sometimes not .. but I did it .

When I moved to California, I wanted roses in the winter and also I didn’t want to take Lisa’s advice she was so kind to teach me all she knew. She reccomended hard pruning but I was learning this climate and I chose not to on some .

They’ll keep blooming here and won’t really drop their leaves if you let them go. Anyway , my observation was .. even tho I did get some winter blooms , the canes were spindly and the leaves yuck until they fell off and were replaced. Spring flush was good but not “wow ! “ and varied by rose . I really think they need the refreshing . My friends In Arizona do a fall hard prune too and get a gorgeous pre winter flush .

I had to find out for myself, I think it makes for an amazing spring show .

I'm in eastern Pennsylvania. We had about 2 really cold snaps, and the rest has been mild and dry. We aren't out of the woods yet, though. I checked my roses the other day. They are out in pots, under buckets, but no heat. Neil Diamond is black to the soil line, but I saw green below there. Italian Ice is black too, but I didn't dig down, so I dunno. It's a fairly young plant, so it may have trouble. On the other hand, Comte de Chambord looks like two little twigs, but they are green to the tips! I will be pleased if 2 of 3 make it.

Following up, about 4 weeks later. My CdC still looks good, with only about 1/4 inch of dieback on each cane. Otherwise still green. I am really hopeful this one will make it through and be able to bloom in the spring.

Neil Diamond, on the other hand, might be a goner. There's no longer any green visible if I pull back some soil. We had one night that went down to 22F and a couple to 28F or so. But other than that, it has stayed above freezing. I guess I will just leave the black stump alone until mid-May and see what happens.

Every rose i had died to the ground except Veilchenblau and Amadeus.

i wonder if its beacuse i wasnt ensuring they were regularly watered.

In zone 7, I find that really surprising and doubt it is your watering fault, jc.

Odd.

I waited until the forsythia was blooming and leaf buds were setting on the roses to prune.

The canes were very very dead. Mostly black and some were brown.

The Wedgewood Rose was the most surprising because it had been extremely vigorous the last couple years.

I did move quite a few this winter. maybe they didnt transplant well?

I bet that was it! I don't like to move roses unless I really have to. Some do this regularly but I do often read here about it not working.

I'm at a bit of a loss with my roses' frost damage. After bad results the previous year with roses rated to USDA Zones 6 and 7, I chose these 3 because they were rated much hardier. Italian Ice - rated to Zone 4. Neil Diamond - sold as Zone 4 or Zone 5. Comte de Chambord - sold variously between Zone 4b and Zone 6. I live on the northern border of Zone 7A. Even in pots, I think all 3 "should" be alive. I think I treated all 3 more or less the same for winter. I put an overturned bucket or pot over each rose. I checked moisture level once in a while and made sure the soil never dried out completely. Yet the first two roses look completely dead, and the third rose still looks green. I'm still holding a bit of hope that something can regrow from the root ball of the two injured roses, but chances don't look good.

Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA I tried messaging you but your message option is not turned on. Feel free to message me since my message option is turned on. Thank you.

Hi straw! 

Not sure how to turn on the messaging option. I'm typing on my phone right now but will try again later on the computer. Thank you for reaching out.

Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA To turn on your message: Move the cursor over your profile picture (upper right). You'll see a pull-down menu. Click on EDIT PROFILE SETTINGS. Then click on ADVANCED SETTINGS. Then select "allow anyone to message me".

@strawchicago z5

Thank you, straw. I changed the settings, I look forward to reading your message.

Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA I messaged you asking about geckos & reptiles in the Chattanoogan, TN bordering GA and NW Georgia area. Both daughter and husband have remote careers and we can relocate anywhere in the country. TN has zero income tax, and Georgia has the highest pay for actuary (my daughter is graduating in Dec. 2023). I have gecko and iguana phobia, that's why I never visit my siblings in Florida and southern CA.

I would freak out if I see a gecko or iguana in my garden, but I have zero problems with snake, mice or toads.

I'm sitting at home, taking a break from a busy workweek, nursing a COVID headache. But I have a bit of good news to share. This past Sunday morning, we heard about Lazarus at church. This past Sunday afternoon, Neil Diamond put on a one-man play, "Lazarus Rose". (Sorry, I'm a dad now, so dad jokes and puns are never far away.) Keep going, little shoot!

How fabulous, Steve! Good luck on the Covid.