Question
Hi.  Zone?  I'm not sure, but we live in/around Toledo Ohio.  We moved into a home where the woman was an excellent gardener.  I believe I have a yellow blaze climbing rose on our fence on the east side of our home.  It is early May, and I haven't seen anything budding, and alot of "sticks" look dead and break easily.  Is there anything I can do, or is this a rose that should not be in Ohio?  Do they bloom every year?  Any information you can give me would be very helpful.  It looks quite established, but I don't know how much they can grow in one year.  We moved in in October, and covered nothing, so I hope I did not kill it!  The reason for me believing this to be a Yellow Blaze is because there is a sort of 'dog tag' for lack of better description hanging on the fence in the midst of this that says clyellowblaze and has a patent number????  Can you help?  Thanks for taking the time to read.... I appreciate your skill!  Have a great day.

Answer
The Yellow Blaze climber might have survived the Ohio winter without any help from you but there is a way to see if it is dead. Take something and scrape at the base of the canes. If there is a green coating on the outside then it will be alive. Keep scraping until you hit the brown areas. They will be dead and you will have to cut the rose down past the brow until the inside of the cane looks like a green apple. Even if you have to cut the climber back to only a couple of inches, that is enough for the rose to become a climber again. Yellow Blaze is hardy to about zone 6 and that is the zone Toledo is in.