Yellow rose shows off

That'll be 'The Yellow Rose of Texas' then, N2!

Do your roses ever go dormant N2? Beautiful bloom by the way. :o)

Yes, Gilli, roses in the central Texas area generally bloom year-round but tend to shut down for a while after the first hard freeze of the winter.

Ahhhh....so it does freeze down where you are?

Wowee...

Gilli, yes it does freeze here, but it is somewhat rare in zone 8-a where I am..
The advantage that I have growing roses on a strict organic program is the "cold hardness" that they have developed. Most roses will show signs of stress near the freezing point of water (32 deg.Fahrenheit or 0 deg Celsius), but when the soil has a rich organic balance of beneficial microbes and fungi, most plants will tolerate cold down to 26 deg. Fahrenheit without displaying any signs of stress.
If it gets really cold, some "flowing row cover" will add an additional 2 degrees of protection which puts my roses safe to 24 deg. Quite rare in this area to get below 25 deg for any amount of time. Usually less than a few hours at night..
:-)

My roses have to tolerate temps down to -25C (-13F) most winters N2. A far cry from your zone 8a. LOL. They seem to do alright although there are varieties that won't survive up here.

Good God, Gilli, how do you do it?
I usually stop the organic fertilizer program on my roses in the early fall and let them "harden" for the winter season. I cannot imagine temps below zero!
Do you have any roses that survive? My brother in law is a master guru when it comes to roses and somehow out-does me every year! LOL!

LOL N2....Surprisingly, most roses are much hardier than you would think. At last count I had 59 rose bushes of various kinds from miniatures to climbers, hybrid teas to english roses to rugosa hybrids and more.
I usually give them their last feed in August and by this time of year the most tender have a 6 to 10" mulch of straw around the crowns. Some of them are hardy enough to survive without any extra protection. The canes usually die back to about the mulch line but I just prune back to live wood in the spring.
I think the roses do better in the cold than I do. I hate winter. :oD

Gilli that is what I have found! Roses are far more durable than most people think, especially with an organic program. Just having a nutrient rich and biologically balanced soil will give them an additional 5 degrees of cold hardness! I have also found that the simple Shasta Daisey grown from seed in an organic environment withstands winter and adverse conditions very well!
I have three of them and they look great after 2 years.
Amazing "critters"... :-)