Renee -- Since Joseph's Coat didn't have the greatest foliage for you, might you consider instead 'Mutabilis.' It does the same marvelous color shifts, and is completely disease-free in California. I'm not sure where you are located, but if you are anywhere near Newbury Park, CA, there is an Heirloom garden where you can see a mature Mutabilis. Though it's considered more of a big shrub than a climber, this one was planted half under oak trees. In response, it has climbed up through the oaks in a very attractive manner. The location would be the Stagecoach Inn, Ventu Park Rd., Newbury Park, not far off the 101 Freeway. Jeri Here is a link that might be useful: Stagecoach Inn

I think you're underestimating how floriferous Joseph's Coat can be in my area, here is a picture of one in mid-summer when the blooms tend to be pretty sparse: This isn't my fence but one near me. The spot I am working with is perpendicular to a long bottlebrush hedge that is usually covered in red. I was thinking the JC would look good with it but I'm less sure about the New Dawn... or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to buy more roses ;oP Ones I was thinking of after browsing some pictures were Flutterbye, Autumn Sunset, and Westerland.

While I agree that there are better climbers than Joseph's Coat, I feel obligated to defend it. Most of the clones on sale are suffering from RMV. A healthy clone is a vigorous rose and no more BS prone than any other modern rose. I have one purchased from Heirloom Roses (RMV free) and in its second season it is over the top of the arch and has bloomed at least some continuously - even in the heat and JB invasion. It will need spraying for BS, but it has all its leaves while a few modern roses in my garden, do not despite my spraying. I've not had any winter dieback either on an ownroot RMV free clone of the plant. It sure does garner the attention from my neighbors - the colors are spectacular.

Hi Cindy In zone 4, you do want to protect the rose but some of the strategies you mention may do more harm than good. In no zone should you put plastic around a rose (at least not on the first layer), as it would trap moisture and cause a lot of mildew and other damage to the rose beyond the cold. The idea is that whatever you put around the rose has to have good air circulation, so the styrofoam rose cones are also not recommended. If you want to wrap it, I'd recommend something like burlap that can breathe. I've seen some experienced rose people put bubble wrap around the edge of their rose beds but not around each individual rose. As a new rose grower, I wouldn't recommend that. You also should leave whatever canes you have on the rose and not cut them down in fall, even though you'll see some rose guides say you're supposed to do that. The reason you don't is that the winter is going to kill off a lot of the growing parts on the end of the canes no matter what you do, so if you have longer canes there's a better chance of some of the rose cane surviving. If you wrap the rose, you can take down the supports and lay the canes down on the ground to make it less affected by the wind. As climbers get bigger over the years I don't bother with that, but you could try it. I use the leaf bags you mention, but I don't put them on top of the rose but stand them around the edges of the rose, like creating a mini down coat. The idea is to protect the canes from the worst of the winter winds and provide some insulation so it doesn't have wild temperature swings from cold to warm till it's ready to wake up in the spring. You can fill the inside of the leaf bag circle around the roses with something natural that stays dry over the winter, like OAK leaves (other leaves get mushy and won't work) or pine needles. You probably have what is called a grafted rose, which means that Joseph's Coat is attached to the roots of another rose that you don't want to grow. There is a knobby bit at the bottom of the rose where all the canes grow from that is the graft, and that's the most important thing to protect over the winter. The rest of the canes can die and the rose you want will regrow if the graft is still alive in spring. If the rose mysteriously turns into a red rose, then it's the rootstock that is growing, and the Joseph's Coat rose would then have died. After all that, Joseph's Coat isn't really all that hardy even in my zone, and it has died several times even in zone 5 with a lot of protection, so don't consider it a failure if it dies. Go ahead and stand some leaf bags around it and wrap it in burlap maybe, and see how it goes. Do this AFTER the ground freezes (around here no earlier than Thanksgiving) or the mice may move in and chew on your rose all winter. You want the rose to get good and cold so it goes to sleep first. Snow is excellent protection for roses so a good layer of snow cover is the best strategy to protect a rose if you can get it. If this rose doesn't survive well for you, log back on here for a question about climbing roses that will do better for you in zone 4. Cynthia