I have many of your roses although I've had better results with some than you've had. Then again I'm in zone 5a.
Don't be in a hurry with those that've died back but are still alive. You'll be surprised how they recover after being pruned back to the ground. The reason all mine are own root. William Baffin, very hardy, has a great spring show but little repeat the rest of the season.

I love your blog! You've inspired me to start one as well.

I'm glad to hear you had success with your Carefree Beauty roses. I just removed three potentilla shrubs from my foundation bed and replaced them with three Carefree Beauty roses. I hope they do as well for me.

Interesting, but you left out The Number. For this past winter, ours was -2°F. Given The Number for this year, I didn't expect much, if any damage, and that's what I got. In my mind, anything around zero is linked to the thought that if I still had Alexandre Girault, it would have bloomed this summer. However, that is a rare enough occurance that I'm glad I got rid of it.

The reference to freeze/thaw makes me think that you had a relatively mild winter also. That's not nasty if you are a plant. If it was, the area around Philadelphia would be a lifeless desert.

I'm just starting out and have very few plants compared to others on this forum. Given Z5 and a white hedge my choices are few. What a pleasure to read Susan's blog.

This was my first year with winter protection and karl bapst was my guru on this. I enriched the bed last fall per his suggestions and it really paid off. Thanks again karl!

We had a hard winter but I found the roses growing right through the burlap two weeks ago. The ones that survived best were the David Austin Winchester Cathedrals which struggled a bit last year after they were planted. They're roaring back.

What a relief.

I am so glad to hear you speak well of White Meidiland. I am planting 5 of them as a ground cover. How do they grow for you in your climate??? Amy

Karl, after I wrote that in my blog I discovered a couple of shoots emerging from Betty Prior. So she's still here. It'll be nice to hear my mother-in-law's voice in my head again (really!) if blooms appear.

Kristin, I hope you'll start a blog. I have two others, though I haven't added to either in quite a while. One is a song blog, complete with YouTube links, and the other was an interesting project that I did January 2006 to January 2007, writing 40 words a day (no more, no less) about 365 people who have crossed my path in a significant way. I had a lot of fun with both of them, especially the latter.

MadG, how does one determine The Number? The winter before last was mild, but this one really wasn't. I guess "thaw" was too strong a term. For most of the winter my property was completely covered in ice. Sometimes it got a softer than other times. I had to wear ice cleats every time I stepped out of the house, and the poor dogs hardly ever got walked.

Rococo, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Both, I've heard that White Meidiland does well here. My own experience with it isn't a fair trial because of the conditions I described, including the busy chipmunks.

Thanks, everyone!

Susan

So you like Gertrude Jekyll. Her lineage is Wife of Bath à Comte de Chambord, so perhaps either one of those might work for you...

Other Austins that came from Wife of Bath: John Clare, Cottage Rose, Scepter'd Isle, Mary Rose, and St. Cecelia.

Can't hurt to try them :)

amy, I don't have the white meidlands
but if they are like my 5 red meidilands, you will have no regrets. Very hardy and disease free, the prettiest foliage of any rose.

Decobug, that was not fair! Here I am, heading to websites to look them up, when I should be working . . .

. . . Oooh, I could go for St. Cecelia! I think it's only fitting, since we have so many musicians in our family.

And maybe Mary Rose. I knew a Mary Rose once. She was a waitress in a jazz club I used to go to. That's a good reason, right?

Just get a min/max thermometer and put it in the garden during the winter. In March, look at the minimum setting and that's the coldest you got. In the east, it seems to be a very good predictor of how well the roses come through the winter, which is a very good predictor of how they will do the following summer. Since there is a lot of variation between what zones people are calling themselves, and at least as much variation from winter to winter, there is a lot of information there. If you can pry it out of people, it gives you a way of translating other's experiences into something you can truly use in your garden. People, including weathermen, think like warm blooded mammals. So wind chill and general ickiness becomes a big part of their perceptions. Plants tend to love general ickiness, and have totally different views on temperature than we do.

Anyway, ice is something I connect with the coast. We had ice in Philadelphia, and my MIL gets ice on Staten Island. She has had years when the dogs stayed inside because it was too trecherous outside. That's zone 7 weather.

Are you sure you mean White Meidilland and not Alba Meidilland? Alba is a good landscaping rose here and fairly common. I don't believe I've ever even seen White.

Both St Cecelia and Mary Rose are gorgeous... Mary taller and Cece shorter... They both say 5b on HMF... :)

According to David Austin the following Austins are rated as 'very hardy' - St Cecelia is not on his list...

A Shropshire Lad
Brother Cadfael
Charlotte
Crocus Rose
Eglantyne
Gentle Hermione
Golden Celebration
Graham Thomas
Huntington Rose
Hyde Hall
L D Braithwaite
Lady Emma Hamilton
Mary Rose
The Mayflower
The Shepherdess
Winchester Cathedral

notice how the list differs from HMF

Here is a link that might be useful: David Austin Website

Interesting. Did you notice Gertrude Jekyll isn't on the list?

I'm very tempted to try one. Or several. This is called enabling, isn't it?

yeah... [evil grin]

mad gallica, I saw this rose as a ground cover last year and fell in love!!! I ordered them from Ashdown at the end of last year for this spring. I spoke with Ashdown and she said it is a wonderful rose for a ground cover because it doesn't suffer from BS and mildew so it can be on the ground and compact. Also they the petals drop nicely instead of staying on and browning. The blooms are beautiful. Amy

Alisande - both of my Distant Drums haven't leafed out either, which I find both interesting and distressing. They are either very lazy and in no hurry to wake up and catch up with their siblings or else they are toast. They are both own-root first year youngsters.
-terry