OK, I want opinions! I have a number of roses that I've gotten from various local nurseries, plus the ones I've gotten at the Big Boxes. Only 1 nursery (Tagawa's) grows their roses inside their facility, which is like a hothouse. Nick's Gardens gets their roses from a distributor (which one, I don't know). Paulinos grows their roses as well, but their roses are in an unheated Quonset hut that's pretty big. It only protects from wind/rain, but not from cold. Big Boxes, of course, get their roses from a distributor or two. Tagawa's & Paulino's gets the little bareroots from Weeks, Star, J&P, etc etc and grow them out. Tagawa's grows them out in 3gal plastic pots. Paulino's grows them out in 3-4gal (not sure) cardboard pots that you're supposed to bury (I never do).

Enough with background. Almost every single rose I got from Tagawa's either didn't make it at all with this past winter, or looks like it has winter kill almost all the way down to the ground (2-6" of green). And, all the roses I bought last year from Paulino's, including my Stainless Steel, which was a pretty crappy rose all summer, looks like they pulled through just fine. I did the "hardening off" process with Tagawa's roses, bringing them in at night for 2 weeks before actually planting them.

DH doesn't want me to buy any roses from Tagawa's this year if they all croaked, which is reasonable. Does a "hothouse" babyhood mean that much with roses? Mind you, everyone was in the ground by late April, so it's not like I was planting them in the middle of October (like I did with some roses I got from RU.. and they all pulled through, even the single bare stick I have!).

?

I'm with your husband on this one, Toni. The fault has to be Tagawa's, because Roses Unlimited's plants are grown under hothouse conditions. If they survived and Tagawa's didn't, there's more to the problem.

I am inclined to agree with Zuzu and your DH, although I can think of other possibilities. Each time I put roses in the ground I do something a little different. So one order is planted at one time using a certain technique, while the next may get a subtly different treatment - for reasons good or bad.

It will be interesting to find out what happens when you prune them to within 3" of the ground and feed them well.

Wouldn't we all love to know if it's the fault of the pots Tagawa uses, or the soil, the fertilizer, or what?

BTW, it is my own (somewhat speculative) observation that roses and other plants that are growing quickly tend to be much more inclined to be devastated by severe environmental setbacks than plants that are behaving in a more guarded way, especially when we are talking about yo-yo weather. Do you remember how each of these roses was behaving just prior to the first hard frost?