I'm at 500 ft Portland and my arctostaphylos that is supposedly hardy turned black all over. I think the largest branch is stil alive, however, as it has a few small leaf buds. We are also replacing Hebes with other plants.

Forgot to add, all roses are doing well, including those in large pots.

If a plant does not do well in the zone you llive in they tend to die off in extreame weather. like extreame cold or excessive heat. check out your zone then check out the zone recomendations for your plants. Then check out things like what diseaeses the plants are prone to and see if you can identify any diseases. Then check for pests. Then check around for herbicide or pesticides. And always check the way you are caring for your plants with what care the plants require. it helos to look into these things so you can narrow down what is going on with a plant.

I'm at 250 feet in Portland, and all roses in pots lived (even the small pots) when it got to 14 degrees for several days. But we did lose Yuletide camellias, tetrapanax, and even some windmill palms (trachycarpus).

Some plants other than roses do not like weather extremes and sometimes they too can be prone to diseases. the they might also have gotten stressed out due to weather extremes. This added stresss could have easily lowered their ability to fight off diseases. This lower disease resistance might have also led to premature death from disease or rot. if it was raining a lot, f for example, the they might have gotten rot and died from this. or they easily could have gotten a disease due to stress from cold wet conditions. black spot is particularlly fond of cold and damp conditions. if the black stuff comes in spots it is likely black spot. in this instance i would not plant any new roses where plants have died. try something eles first like daisies. or maybe sunflowers. something easy to grow but hard to kill that favors your zone and weather conditions would work out really well. Daisies tend to be annual flowers. but they are very difficult to kill. Flake Daisies (also called African Dasies by my familly) are very hardy. plant them in october and the will bloom and grow from march until the end of august or September.

That is some of them that bloomed in our backyard just this March. Can be invasive though. so try to keep them confined to the area you plant them in. all the ones that bloom in our backyard are volunteer plants from the original seed package. The birds like goldfinches and our Montezuma quail seen to like to eat the seeds sometimes. They will also produce many seeds. you can harvest the seeds if you want to.

It was the worst winter for broad leaved evergreens since 1996, according to experts that have been pushing horticultural limits in Portland for a very long time. I'm in Dallas, OR (400ft). My Sarcococca are a mess. The one by my patio looked so bad I just moved it to another spot where I don't have to look at it! Euonymus japonicus Green Spire has all dead tips. Many other of my BLEs have major damage, Pittosporums probably hit the worst. A lot of evergreen azaleas in my neighborhood look half dead (but will probably be fine, if watered this summer). My figs have 1-2" dead tips but this seems to happen most years, even up in Seattle, never really affects fruiting.

Your roses, however, that's surprising, Portland being the rose city and all. Might be a combination of soil being too wet (which makes all plants more susceptible to harsh winters) and the January Arctic Blast.

1,600 feet, that's pretty high. If you had a thermometer that records lows I bet you would be shocked by how cold it got, and for how long, during the Arctic Blast in January.

Ive been looking fir a thread like this - my 10 year old big and healthy sarcococcas all browned after the storm and still havent grown many green leaves. Any tips?

I cut my sarcococcus back to the ground. Looks like they are coming back.

Zero re-growth so far on my Sarcococca, but I expect them to grow a little, later in the season.

It was also a very hard winter on Hebe. All but the hardiest types took a major hit. James Stirling was unaffected and looks perfect, extremely hardy. But all of my Quicksilver (which is also supposed to be very hardy) are just sitting there doing nothing, no growth, no silver, they are the same color as the hemlock mulch. At least there is no twig die-back.

I also lost a four feet tall Trachycarpus despite wrapping. Ironically my Tetrapanax came through just fine.

Tetrapanax is a trouper. The fact that it is deciduous helps it survive these types of winters. And if it is killed above ground it will always come back from the roots...usually all over the place. But I'm sure you have found this out for yourself!

Funny what a difference only a couple hundred miles - if that - will make. tbh, I AM surrounded by water so that will moderate temps quite a bit but it did hit 15F here for at least one night if not a couple more. Since everything was in containers after my late fall move, I did expect some losses. What did not make it was Leycesteria Golden Lanterns, monarda Jacob Kline (??) and two hardy fuchsias. All my JM's, broadleaved evergreen shrubs (including a pittosporum!), clematis and some zone pushers made it through unscathed.

My double delight is doing just peachy.

BuBut it still hss it’s own issues. li like leaf cutter bees.

Rose aphids.

And other weird flying bugs I have not quite identified yet. I live in AZ USA…

Okay Cam Buxton, a couple of things I want to point out. The first picture is not damage from leaf cutter bees. Possibly caterpillars but IDK for sure. The second is that the last photo is a type of wasp.

I lost quite a few hardy fuchsias and hardy citrus, but no roses. It was one of the coldest winters in the PNW in many years - at 1600 ft you must have been down to 0F, perhaps? We were at 12F at sea level. That's likely below the general temerature parameters of your zone. In the case of roses lost that should be zone hardy - how were they planted? If they were in pots or soil too wet, too dry, exposed to wind, that could explain it.

It didn’t get lower than the teens but for longer than the valley. Surprisingly, as cold air flows downhill we are sometimes warmer than the valley directly below us. In summer we are about 7-9 degrees cooler tho.
MIP was in a large pot and protected. But this rose, although she had been growing well in the pot for a couple of years had languished in the open garden. She just didn’t seem to like the spot – – and of course, in a gopher cage. Another rose, a hybrid tea, called ketchup and mustard, in a large pot also died, but I kind of expected that. My few hybrid teas in the ground, seemed to do well
. I have many many roses and, the overwhelming majority did just fine, but probably the ones in pots who died were in some kind of microclimate that doomed them. Luckily, I cloned the old garden roses, so I hope they will strike and I will be able to start over again.

Old Garden roses that are doing robustly for me this year despite the cold and wind are Variegata de Bologna, Cardinal Richelieu , Tuscany Superb, Super Dorothy, Crown Princess Margarita (a little knocked back), Alchemyst, Complicata, Scharlachglut, Zigeunerknabe,Zephyrin Drouhin, Charles de Mills, James Galway, and others. Hope you all are enjoying this fine gardening weather

Oh yes, my one hardy citrus, next to the Oregon Prolific fig, did great. Go figure.

Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) it is defininately leaf cutter bees. i saw them chewing the leaves. and i was thinking the mystery bug was a sawfly or something like that because they have fly like heads, long tails, and look a lot like a tiny wasp. but there are a lot of parasitic wasps out there too. i just cannot tell which bug it might be.🤷‍♀️