Drainage is a special consideration, and one that gets trickier the more I think about it. Burying roses for the winter is something I have extremely little second-hand knowledge about. I know one person who does it, and it's hard to tell what site-specific oddities he is or isn't dealing with. To start with, fall is our rainy season, as much as we have one. It's also when the deciduous trees start going dormant, so they pull up considerably less water in December than they do in August. Aside from surface drainage, it seems to me that the soil is every bit as soggy in March as it is in October. And that isn't taking any snow into consideration. Without snow insulation, frost enters the ground from the top down. It leaves in the opposite direction, from the bottom up. It takes a lot of energy to thaw out water, including water in soil. This is one of those obvious things that took me a while to figure out. The temperature characteristics of dry soil resemble the temperature characteristics of air - it's a relatively good insulator, but warms and cools relatively quickly. The temperature characterisics of wet soil resemble the temperature characteristics of water - it's a relatively poor insulator and warms and cools slowly, with an extreme delay due to the energy change necessary to change water to ice and vice versa. When it comes to winter protection and roses, there is far more in this than I have so far teased out. What I've got so far, is that it takes considerably more wet soil to provide the same insulating qualities than dry soil. Another point is that when the soil is thawing out, there is a rock-like drainage barrier at the frost line. Because it takes so much heat to warm up the water, the frost line moves very slowly. So unless there is a significant change in level, which allows the water to escape, any given soil level can spend several days sitting in water until the soil thaws out enough to let the water sink to the next level. When you add snowmelt into this, you see why a very extended Mud Season is normal. You can also see why going inside and avoiding the entire issue has become quite common. When we were in Maine for a HRF convention years ago, they talked about a local nursery that buried their leftover roses in a hole in a barn. The southerners thought it was one of the looniest things they'd ever heard.

Before I bought my house, I gardened in pots for years. Today, I still garden in pots and I know for me, small pots will freeze in the winter (and I don't get severe winters like other folks). I tend to plant in large styrofoam pots as they tend to insulate better than the plastic ones. I bring my frost sensitive ones into my garage or cover them with painters tarps (not the plastic ones but the cloth ones). I do this for my citrus plants that are in pots or in the ground as I don't want them to freeze. Before I put on the tarps, I make sure they are well watered. I never have had to cover my roses, they have always come through like champs during the winter, but again, the coldest it gets here is about 15-20 degrees for a night or so. More likely it will get down to 23-25 degrees for a week a couple of times a year. I am far more worried about my limes, lemons, australian finger limes, etc. My yuzu takes the cold just fine. No worries there. What is harder to watch are the farmers and how they try to save their oranges during a freeze. They pour water on the plants as ice will help to keep them warm. I drive by them daily and see icecicles hanging from the trees. The rows between the trees covered in sheet ice. They will employ helecopters to hover over the trees to move the air so it won't freeze the plants. Lots of sleepless nights, water use during a drought and money spent to save their crops.

Jose, Sorry I didn't answer all your questions, Got carried away. I used to have a negronne that was in ground for a couple of years that would die down to about two feet. Once, The main stem grew about 12' straight up without branching. Last year I planted three trees and did not do any pruning since most of the die back starts from the tip and works its' way down. I have them wrapped with burlap and plastic. So far it's been rather mild around here and I wish it stays this way the rest of the season. It would be a milestone for me to not have a great loss. But only time will tell. thisisme, I've been to every state in the U.S. and most of the Canadian provinces and the worst I've ever seen heat wise was in Yuma, Arizona. Good farming community but it's not for me. So close to Hell you can see sparks coming from the ground ( LOL ). 110-F @ midnight just doesn't cut it. Rafed

My first Hydrangea is now in the ground for more than 25 years. At this point, I keep it for sentimental reasons only. It's gotten so THICK with canes that if I wrap it in my usual cage, I have to get everything so tight in there that I think I may actually be suffocating the plant. I've not had good luck overwintering it in recent years. This past winter I didn't even bother with it. If I were you, I'd consider taking a cutting or digging out a portion of your sentimental one and essentially start over. It would indeed be the same plant, so you could keep your sentiment. But I can understand sentiment. I should get rid of my first Hydrangea, but I'm not. For a long time I would cut back the old canes completely to the ground in the Fall. I'd only leave canes that had shot up from low points on the canes or from the crown. They would have grown all summer and would end up giving me great flowering the next year. I'd have very long stemmed flowers, too, that I had cut. The big problem with this technique is that you end up with weaker stems than you would otherwise and next summer they'd be weighted down to the ground with their flowers. I've found that, for my zone, I can usually prune as hard as I want up until about Fourth of July, just to be easy to remember, and not hurt the flowering potential for next year. After that, the buds start setting for next year and you start running into that problem. (But then I've cut some "nikkos" back to the crown in the Fall and on some I'd get great flowering and on some I'd get none. Do I really understand this? NO.) So, here is another method for you to consider to keep it smaller, at least in height. Another thing I've experimented with is to prune all the wimpy growth completely out and just end up with a few stout canes over time. This was interesting, but you end up with an artifical looking Hydrangea and the few stout canes start looking rather strange. But with this technique, more or less, you could develop a plant that wasn't so crowded. I don't know though. I wish I could help you more. I'd like an answer to the question you have, too! Hay