Warm winter issues

[speedog]

So this spring, our 60 year old shrub rose is struggling with almost all of it's canes not showing any signs of growth. Instead, this shrub rose is sending up a multitude of new canes from it's massive crown - this is not something we've seen in the 19 springs we've been in our home. Now in some ways I suppose this is good as it will regenerate the plant but it got me to wondering as to why this would happen this year.

Of note last year, we had some canes die back as well - some reading has revealed that this is the result of a too warm winter, shrub roses need a defined cold winter spell to set them up properly for the next year and certainly the last couple of winters in Calgary have been quite a bit warmer. What is interesting is if these warmer winters are affecting something as insignificant as and old rose bush, then what else is being affected - is anyone else seeing anything similar in their gardens?

[88CRX]

I have some tree's and shrubs struggling (columnar aspens and lilacs) while others are in full bloom (pinnacle birch). Its usually the other way around which his odd. And the stuff that's struggling is all the plants that get full sun.

Maybe the aspens and lilacs aren't late but some of the other stuff is just early

[Darell_n]

I had one tree start showing signs of budding in Jan or Feb? during the warm spell and is now slow. It's important to keep them watered when they warm up prematurely as we are practically a desert for 6 months a year and they can suffer when they thaw out and dry up.

[bspot]

This is why snow = good. Every time things get warm they lose some of their hardiness. Dumping snow on the sensitive stuff in the winter has made a noticeable difference for some of my shrubs and vines. Keep it insulated so the root temperature fluctuates less.

[speedog]

Originally posted by bspot
This is why snow = good. Every time things get warm they lose some of their hardiness. Dumping snow on the sensitive stuff in the winter has made a noticeable difference for some of my shrubs and vines. Keep it insulated so the root temperature fluctuates less.

My particular shrub rose canes were about 6 feet tall and it is situated against a south facing wall - that combined with the little snow we got in Calgary would've made it difficult to cover it in a snow mound.

Never the less, I'll prune out all the old canes this weekend as there's great news ones coming up from the crown. Raspberries took a bit of a beating as well.

[01RedDX]

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