Getting Your Roses Ready for Winter

It's time to think about protecting your rose bushes for winter weather conditions. In September, you should let the flowers remain on the bush. These flowers will begin to become seed pods. Allowing the rose to produce seeds signals the plant that it has successfully reproduced itself and may now rest. Feeding should have been discontinued in mid-September. Where I live in upstate New York it is advisable not to winterize roses until early November. If you cover them too early before temperatures are consistently cold, you can harm them.

To understand why the bushes should be protected, you need to know what happens when winter damage occurs. Each plant cell is composed mainly of water, and when water freezes, it expands. If the water in the cell is allowed to freeze, the cell becomes damaged and could even die.

Lower temperatures and shorter days trigger a two-step process called acclimation. In the first stage, changes occur in the permeability of the cell wall and to both protein and sugar levels inside the cell. This change allows for the water in each cell to move out when the temperatures drop below freezing for extended periods of time.

The second stage begins during this extended time of subfreezing temperatures and results in full winter hardiness so plant tissue can now freeze and recover. When you winterize is important. If you winterize your roses too early, the first stage cannot happen because you will have insulated the plant from the temperature change. Without these metabolic changes to its cells, the water will still be present, and will expand and burst the cell.


Let blossoms form hips (the red capsule left after the petals fall). This helps slow down growth and promote dormancy. Remove all fallen leaves from around the base to keep fungal disease spores, such as black spot and powdery mildew, from over-wintering. Bundle the canes together using twine or strips of cloth. Using light soil, make a mound covering the base and canes to a height of 10 to 12 inches.
Don't use soil from around the rose, since you could expose the roots.

When the ground has frozen, cover the remainder of the canes with with straw, leaves, or any light mulch and wrap them completely with burlap and tie with twine. For hybrid teas, floribundas and grandifloras, I prefer stuffing crumpled newspaper among the canes, as it's much easier to handle than leaves or mulch and easier to clean up in the spring.
You can use foam cones instead of burlap, but I don't recommend them. If you choose the cone methods, you should still mulch the crown and lower stems with soil inside the rose cones, and put some holes in the cone tops so the rose can breathe and excess moisture can escape.


You can use foam cones instead of burlap, but I don't recommend them. If you choose the cone methods, you should still mulch the crown and lower stems with soil inside the rose cones, and put some holes in the cone tops so the rose can breathe and excess moisture can escape.

For climbing roses, you can follow the above method or do the following: Lower the bush from its support, gently arching the canes near the crown, placing it in the ground. Hold the canes down with two crossed stakes every few feet, then cover it completely with 3 or 4 inches of soil.

In spring, remember not to uncover their roses too early. Many gardeners make the mistake of uncovering their roses as soon if it becomes warm in late March and then lose them to a hard freeze in early April. So it's advisable not to remove the wrappings until there is no danger of frost in May.

Protect rose bushes over the winter so you'll still have them next year.