Roses provide the yard with a beautiful pop of color in the summer, so it is important to give them all the winter protection they need to ensure they’re ready to bloom once more come spring. Frosts and freezes pose challenges, but a number of solutions exist to provide you with a way to beat the worst. Learn some of the top ways to give your roses the winter protection they need.
Why Roses Need Winter Care
Many roses are the result of grafting: The canes and flowers are one type of rose, and the part in the ground is another type. They are joined at the crown—the bundle in the ground from which canes grow together—but this union makes a grafted plant more susceptible to diseases and other problems than a non-grafted plant. That’s why sheltering the crown is the main focus of winter rose protection.
Beyond these basic steps, there are a few other things you may want to do to give your rose winter protection, depending on how cold winter gets where you live.
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Protecting Flowers From Frost
Protecting your roses from frost and freezing temperatures begins with selecting a type of rose bush suited to your USDA hardiness zone. You can further ensure the plant will survive winter by initially planting your rose in a spot sheltered from high winds.
If it’s suited to your zone frost won’t kill your rose bush, but it can turn the edges of rose petals black. If you want to extend the flowering season, build a framework of stakes around your plant and throw an old blanket over it on nights when frost is predicted. Be sure to remove the blanket in the morning.
Prune Roses in Fall
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After the first hard frost in autumn, but before the plant has gone dormant, use a sharp, sterile pruning shears to prune your rose bush down to within 2 to 3 feet off the ground.
The reason for pruning at this time is to keep the plant from being whipped around by the winter winds. The more a rose bush is blown back and forth by high winds, the greater the chance it will become sufficiently dislodged to expose its crown.
Tying the canes together after pruning will also make the plant more wind-resistant.
Pest Control
After pruning your roses, you may see more pests like rose cane borers on them than usual. These pests are usually larvae of sawflies, bees, or wasps. They love the freshly cut ends of the canes and unfortunately pose an existential threat to your plant.
To ensure this doesn’t happen to your roses, apply glue or pruning paint over the cut end after pruning to help keep those pests away.
Watering in Late Fall
Once roses go dormant in fall, they may look like just sticks in the ground. With their leaves gone it’s easy to forget that they still need water, but do remember to give them a drink when their soil is totally dry. Once the ground freezes, their roots, which are very much still alive, will have no access to water all winter.
Frost Protection
Depending on what kind of roses you have, and what USDA zone you live in, roses can benefit from various methods of frost protection for the winter.
The Mounding Method
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If you live in USDA zone 6 or above, the mounding method may be sufficient to afford your rose winter protection. Mound up about 12 inches of soil over the crown and apply garden mulch on top of this for extra insulation. Fall leaves can suffice as mulch if you still have some lying around. As long as the rose is dormant, it won’t be harmed by this operation.
Covering Roses
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This method starts out the same as the mounding method, but after you cover the crown with soil add another covering to the plant as well for extra protection. You can use materials such as breathable fabrics or burlap, or use rose cones sold specifically for this purpose.
The Minnesota Tip Method
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The Minnesota tip method is the preferred way to protect roses (and especially climbing roses) in areas with very cold winters. Here, you cover the whole plant in soil.
Begin by digging a trench near your rose, making it the approximate length of the canes. Then untie the canes from their trellis and gingerly bend them down so that they’ll lie in the trench. If the canes seem to require stabilizing, stake them in the trench. Finally, shovel the soil you removed to form the trench over the canes. You can apply mulch for further protection if necessary.
