While some greet spring with leaves of green

Some are too shy yet for greetings at all

While others steadfast have stood thru the cold

(proof Darlow's Engima had leaves all winter)

Oooh!! All of my roses are still in the garage. I'm planning on Tuesday on taking out of the garage the 8 (of the 45) that I'm going to be using in my brand new adventure in hybridizing. Then I'll put those 8 back in the garage every night
It's so exciting to see those new leaf buds, etc. Thanks for giving me goose bumps of anticipation.
Carol.

I just removed the last of my roses from the garage last night. I waited until the forecast was fairly warm before removing the zone 7 roses. On the other hand, I tried out an old rule I used with container gardening before I grew roses, that if a plant was hardy two zones further north than you were, it would be safe outside with no protection during the winter, so my zone 3 and 4 roses spent the winter outside, which was how Darlow's Enigma got to show it keeps its green leaves all thru the snow. Most of them came thru the winter fine, with little dieback except a couple that weren't very happy to start with, and George Burns which I wonder if his zone rating wasn't a fluke.

They look ready to go!

I have some starting here too. Well, they're in the pot ghetto not the ground but they're green!

Only sticks here with swollen buds... Things are slow this year it seems...

You know I thought so too, Jim. But really, last year we had no winter to speak of and things were too early! I think we got spoiled, lol.

The first bud--from a member of the Red Leaf clan. I suppose this makes sense because most of the green leaf ones are either Polyanthas or once-bloomers.