Wintering Your Rose Garden - An Important Fall Routine Articles | Garden Information Center

If you live somewhere where it gets quite cold in the winter, it can be very difficult to have roses survive through the season. Even though it is difficult, it is certainly possible, no matter where you live or how harsh the winter is. Buying and planting very resilient varieties such as Explorer, Parkland, and Buck roses helps. Also, many old-fashioned versions of the roses will likely do well. If they weren't good at surviving the elements, they wouldn't be around anymore.

Protecting the bud graft from freezing or being damaged during the winter is the main thing that needs done to keep the roses alive, yet dormant, through the winter months. To do this, you should plant the bud union deeply when you plant your roses. At the end of the summer, after the last flower has fallen, you should cut the canes to ground level and clear any fallen leaves. Leaves with any sign of black spot or mildew should be cleared and burned.

Next, you should create above ground protection to the bud union. You can do this by creating a pyramid of soil (from another part of the garden) around the plant to cover the canes that you cut, mound the soil 12-18 inches above the cut canes. This process of "hilling" is enhanced by spraying the canes with a combination of lime-sulphur and dormant oil before you add the hill of soil. This will help to prevent fungus from growing.

Other options to create the hill are to use peat moss or Styrofoam containers. Each option has been proven to work in keeping the plants dry and warm, and can be chosen based upon personal preference.

In very harsh climates, covering the entire garden with a poly foam blanket has been proven to help more roses survive. The blanket will not be extremely attractive, and you will have to cover the edges with soil so it is weighted down and sealed. If having the garden look weird in the winter in order to have healthier roses the next season seems like a reasonable compromise to you, it will work very well for you.

There are other quality over-wintering techniques that could be used. First, you can wrap the roses with burlap and fill the space inside with leaves to be used as insulation. Similarly, you can section off areas around the rose plants with wire or snow fences and fill those areas with leaves.

As long as you remember that the whole point of any technique used is to protect the bud union from freezing, any of the above options can be used to help your roses survive the harsh winter months.