winter injury

As weather warms...and it will - the calendar says it is officially spring - people will hopefully be spending an increasing amount of time outdoors. As they are outside, they may notice some things that they had not observed last year, and it may catch them by surprise and they may begin seeking answers. We had just the situation in the OSU Lucas County Extension office when a resident stopped by to ask what happened to their tree over the winter.  Their verbal description of "vertical raised lines" on the main trunk of some of their trees in their landscape, and photos on their cell phone...

Back in the spring, I wrote a BYGL alert about winter injury to roses.  THANKS to everyone for their feedback and response as to what's being seen around the state.  It seems that the general consensus is that all types of roses experienced major dieback with damage clear down to around four to six inches above the graft.  Some lost a few roses completely but the majority of the roses have recovered nicely according to most.  Winter injury reports came from all around Ohio as well as from Detroit.

 

It still drives me crazy to drive around town and see the old dead wood...

Several types of roses in Central and Southern (confirmed by Joe Boggs) were knocked back pretty good by cold winter weather.  While trimming my shrub and carpet-type roses in early April I noticed quite a bit of dead wood.  I had to really trim them back to a height of about six inches.  They are looking great right now as the new growth is vigorous.  I completely lost one climbing rose and another one was killed back to the crown.  The new growth on this one is coming from the root stock.

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