Question
QUESTION: Hello!  I pruned my roses the last weekend of February and fertilized them.  We had a late freeze blow in and  blast the roses with snow and 40 mile an hours winds for 24 hours this past Friday.  All of the new growth\leaves are wilting and some of the new shoots are dark and mushy.  Do I need to just remove the wilting and mushy growth or do I need to reprune down to the next bed eye on the canes themselves?  Also, do they need more fertilizer to help get them going?  I watered the roses two days before the winter blast...did this hurt or help?  Thank you so much!

ANSWER: Yes, you will have to prune back the roses even though you may get another blast of cold. This is the worst that can happen to roses as they will not tolerate growth start and then a hit of cold. Keep in mind that a rose can grow back from a couple of inches so I don't think you will lose your roses. Start to first prune the blacked canes, right down to where the inside is a pale green with no brown at all in it. Prune the tips of the canes with the wilted leaves on them and if the canes are green inside then just leave them as the leaves will come back again, even a third time, with no ill effects. Because the roses have been under stress and are still in it, their roots will not be able to take up any fertilizer so don't give them anymore for now. It wasn't your watering that cause any problems it was the sap rising and making the canes damp inside instead or being hard that caused the problem. If you think you are going to get more of this type of weather in the future, it might be a wisdom to protect your roses with a mound of mulch just to be on the safe side. With all the strange weather the country is getting, gardeners are really having a bad time in some areas.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for the response to my earlier questions. Do I need to remove the fried leaves even if the stems they are on look ok, or do I let them drop on thier own? I live in Lubbock Texas.  I pruned the last weekend of February.  Was this too early for my area?  The weather here can be so unpredictable, often it's in the 70's and 80's around Christmas and off and on throughout the winter months.  It's been in the 70's consistently for almost two months now.  Thank you!

Answer
I know one gets eager to get out in the garden and prune the roses but bear in mind  that you don't have to prune when the rose isn't growing. In your area you can wait until the middle of March and prune the roses back then even though they have started to grow. That way you would be sure the roses were not going to get a nasty hit of weather. I used to prune my roses in the early spring before they had budded out but now with the strange spring weather I get, I wait until there is no danger of frost and then I prune. The roses have started to put out new growth by then but it doesn't effect their growth pattern because I do it later. We rose gardeners may have to re-think tour spring pruning routine. There is no need to remove the damaged leaves as the new ones will push them out and off the canes.