Did i kill my knockout roses?

[Sabina515]

I pruned all my knockout roses this year to a 1/3. Half of them are doing fine, and the other half..... Well, the canes appear dead but growth coming from the bottom. What did I do wrong? Will they grow back? All of them were almost 4feet tall and round, but very spindly. Healthy.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I pruned all my knockout roses this year to a 1/3. Half of them are doing fine, and the other half..... Well, the canes appear dead but growth coming from the bottom. What did I do wrong? Will they grow back? All of them were almost 4feet tall and round, but very spindly. Healthy.

In what context do they grow? Half of mine are shorter than the others but they are next to a pasture that has a four legged rose eating machine that looks suspiciously like a horse.

 

[Sabina515]

They grow along a fence in sun all day. Dense suburban neighborhood. I have mostly rabbits and squirrels. Neighbors have no pet horses

 

[DirtMechanic]

Mine have an elevation change so that the uphill plantings drain down toward the others and thus need to be checked for moisture more frequently. Your medium may vary?

 

[mac1911]

I usually prune my roses now , but all of them are black/brown and lifeless.
? This winter we had zero snow cover and I dont even think the ground froze much more than a few weeks
From mid dec to late march it was above freezing but cold and wet. Im wondering if this killed them?

 

[DirtMechanic]

I usually prune my roses now , but all of them are black/brown and lifeless.
? This winter we had zero snow cover and I dont even think the ground froze much more than a few weeks
From mid dec to late march it was above freezing but cold and wet. Im wondering if this killed them?

Snow is insulating. It only gets really cold when its clear.

 

[Chuck]

You said you pruned to 1/3. Do you mean you pruned away 2/3? 1/2 is max when pruning a plant. Also, some knockouts are grafted and others are not. If you have shoots coming up from the ground you may have a grafted plant and these shoots are coming off of the rootstock.

 

[Avocado]

…, Will they grow back? All of them were almost 4feet tall and round, but very spindly. Healthy.

Short answer. Yes they will grow back.
Long answer. Once I moved into a house in California, it had a rose bush in the back. I don’t particularly care for roses because they don’t produce fruit. So I chopped it to the base using my lopper. It didn’t die. I mowed it over. Still did not die. I dug the roots out. The hole was foot deep. Still shoots were coming out. I kept at it every week digging it deeper and wider.

Unless you ‘pruned’ them with a shovel, roses will keep coming up.