Way too early, wait till at least early April. Typical pruning time in our area is when the forsythia is in FULL bloom. Plenty of hard freezes ahead before then....

What Patty said. The key is to get it off the crowns and canes but don't completely remove it so that it can be added if you are getting several consecutive nights of freezes. A night here and there of cold temps likely wouldn't hurt it. It's the sustained cold that would hurt it.

Just my humble opinion and personal experience.

Susan

Thanks! I was worried about "crud" starting to grow if I left it on. Looks like we are hopefully done with the worst of the cold - they should be ok if the forecast is right. I hadn't even thought about doing any pruning yet. Should I be cutting down the black canes? I think I have a few out there. Sunday may be the day to get it done before the rain starts.

Julie I get the black ones because when I use to wait the black continues to travel down. Then there where times it would discolor or rot the crown area. I sort of thought it wasn't doing much good to leave it on. I got one that was all ready an inch from the crown so was glad that I checked.

Susan thanks for mentioning that. I do it to then when spring is established I can just spread it around.

I'd wait. I got burnt once taking things off right away when we had a warm up early. Later on we had a terrible freeze and I lost a lot of roses. I'm leery now about doing it too soon. Yes, you take the chance that they may grow some of that white growth or get some canker but I'd rather that than lose them altogether.

I know this doesn't help for your situation now, Dingo, but I live in zone 4 and I don't cover my roses. I plant grafted roses with the graft 6 inches below the soil line and own-root roses 2-4 inches below the soil line. Every year, my roses winter kill to the ground, but the canes are always 6 inches long under the dirt. I do put some chipped rose canes on top of my roses in the fall, so they have a little something there and others have big bark chips. Those stay in place always.

Sometimes in the Spring after the canes that are right next to the house are 8-10 inches high, we get a nasty killer frost. During those times, I throw garden quilts on top of my new canes, being careful to brace them, to keep them from freezing... It is a pain to do, but I learned that lesson the hard way and lost a bunch of canes and had very late blooms that year, although the roses did survive. For those folks who have way more roses than the 30 I have, this just isn't practical.

I usually take the roses themselves as indicators for when to take the protection off. In some parts of my yard, they're already getting growth buds for leaves and nothing I do is going to stop that process once it gets started. The risk of canker and other nasty effects becomes greater than the protection there. As Seil says, there is the risk of a late freeze zapping things, but I find that those kinds of freezes affect my roses the worst when they're already fully leafed out and then a deep freeze hits. I tried to protect my roses from the Easter freeze we had several years ago, but nothing I could do really was enough against a really late April freeze.

The good news is that I've heard the early growth here in March has some kind of internal protection against freezes - someone has described it as akin to antifreeze in a car. Once the growth gets going, this effect goes away, but it means that nights that dip in the 20's aren't going to bother the roses now. Remember that you don't even put ON the protection in the winter until the temperatures average in highs of the 20's, at least in my yard, so I know that these roses can take temperatures at least that cold even when they're actively growing and blooming.

Obviously take all this contrary advice under consideration and do what works best for you. In the warm parts of my yard I've already pulled away the protection, as the roses have started their growth buds and they're waking up. In the cooler parts, I won't start scraping back the protective leaves for another week or two. All around, things are waking up in my yard wayyyy earlier than usual, so it throws my schedules and anticipation of things off in a big way.

Cynthia

Julie I should be more specific as my winter protection is only the leaves that blow around in fall and always catch on the bushes. Then they stay until I pull them out. I have put mulch on them long ago but there are too many now. So far the only roses that I've lost to a winter are ones that were weak to begin with. But I don't zone push roses so thats probably why I don't loose any. I also plant deep like Rebecca. Cynthia's explanation is very good and the same as it is here for me. Some of my roses are beginning to awake. I'm fairly confident there will be leaves by the end of this string of sixty degree days and rain that we have coming.

Either way if we have another elongated freeze like the easter freeze most will be damaged. They will survive and need pruning again. Then as Cynthia said bloom will be later than sooner. Ironic

We still have snow cover, but it should be gone pretty quick so I can get a better idea of how things look. I'm just so happy we had a mild winter, last year at this time I think we were still below zero and buried in snow. Nice to go outside and only need a hoodie! Like Cynthia said, some that are up against the south side of the house that are way ahead of the others - tulips are popping up in that bed already - up against the brick. Ironically I notice them while shoveling snow the other day! Others, not so much, they are out in the open. The deer are thoughtfully helping with pruning things though!

I agree, was just thinking I don't care if I pay a price for this weather. Bring it on I'm ready to feel the warmth, smell the showers, see the grass green again. Oh happy days of spring.

I've learned to let my Rugosa's tell me that it is time to uncover things. When the bud eyes start to pop on them, the soil is starting to warm up. They are in a partially shaded, cold spot in my back yard. If you are worried about hard freezes, I'd just pull the cover from around each bush but leave the cover in the garden to recover just in case.