"dave weil" wrote in message
...
How many of you in more southern climes have had your roses going nuts
in mid-January? Most of my roses have been bustin' out since the
second week in January.

Hi Dave - My roses haven't gone dormant at all.
But that's not unusual around here (Zone 8). They
will slow down - same as they do when it gets
really hot in the summer. But I've seen a lot of
new growth since January, and some shrubs
have blooms.

I was concerned and was sure that the new growth would be killed
pretty quickly, but it seems like the new growth had time to harden up
a little, because it's been in the high 20s several times and the red
growth has survived nicely. We had a week or two of very mild weather
with no frosts at night.

I was specifically worried about last night because we had rain
earlier in the day, but fortunately, it dried up before sunset. My
biggest worry is ice at this point because they seem to be acclimated
to temperature. However, this week will be a big test because we're
going to be under freezing for a few days in a row.

The only time I had a problem was a couple of
years ago. We had an early "spring", like this one,
followed by a week or so of really nasty freezing
weather. I had planted a bunch of new (young)
roses the previous fall, and many of them died.
The older roses did ok, IIRC.

How are the rest of you zone 6ers and 7ers dealing with this very mild
winter? Personally, I think I'm going to have to recalibrate my
"dormancy watch" because I think that a lot of this early growth MIGHT
have a chance to survice. Usually I don't do anything major until
around April 10th, which is the last official frost date (although we
haven't had a serious frost in April since I've been growing roses). I
might just push the envelope this year and start fertilizing early
(not yet of course). Any thoughts about this?

I have been transplanting mature roses and so far
they're doing fine. I don't think we'll get a freeze
this "winter" where I am. But I'm holding off on
fertilizing at least until March.

Gail
near San Antonio TX Zone 8