Winterizing roses is an essential maintenance practice, undertaken to ensure healthy and constant growth of the plant so that it is strong and ready for spring.
How much winter protection you need to give your roses depends on your climate and the particular rose. Winterizing roses should be done in late fall after a hard frost, for most folks in the north, but for us here in the Pacific Northwest, we may not have true “hard” freezing weather until mid winter. So, for me, I usually will prune my bushes back around Halloween. By then we are starting to get some frosty nights and since we have lots of rain, the plants are done blooming anyway.
The standard advice from most rose experts is to prune your plant back by a third of it's size. Well, I am guilty of pruning mine back nearly to the ground and they have come back even stronger! As a general rule with pruning hybrid tea roses, any cane thinner than a pencil should be removed. DO remove the oldest stems that are no longer productive.
As a group, hybrid tea roses are more tender and are most vulnerable to winter cold and need the most preparation. The timing and extent of protective measures for more fragile hybrid tea roses depends on how cold your winters are.
It is very important here with our mild rainy weather, to remove all foliage from the ground as roses are very susceptible to fungus. Diseased leaves left on the ground will allow spores to bounce back up onto the plant when the rain hits them and keep infecting the plant.
If you live in an area with relatively mild winters, you may simply mound the mulch over the plant crown 6 to 12 inches. For sudden freezing nights some protection may be needed. I have heard of everything from bed sheets to bubble wrap! Now, the bubble wrap sounds like a great idea! You have the insulating air pockets of the wrap and it's light enough in weight than it won't break your plants branches, like bedding may do if it becomes weighted down by a heavy dew or gets rained on.
If you don't cut back the leaves and remove the foliage, when the freezing weather hits the frost will travel down to the roots and most likely, your plant will die. Growers understand the importance of summer watering their roses and having rose beds with good drainage, however, the plants can also be stressed if they enter the cold weather season too dry.
Many shrub roses and species roses may be hardy enough to endure your winters without protection. Check with your local Extension office for specific information. In areas where winters are unstable, with freeze/thaw cycles, roses can be weakened or even killed off. This is because the natural anti desiccant in the plant blocks in moisture, which protects the plant from the damage caused by freezing, thawing or refreezing in winters.
How your rose fares in winter depends on a number of factors--the weather, the plant's location in the garden and, of course, the type of rose it is. The thing to do is monitor the weather reports and have your mulch and cover materials (see notes in a previous paragraph) ready to go should a cold snap be predicted.
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