Well, more advanced help is coming, I'm sure, but how hardy are your roses - what zone are they rated for. If you want no fuss for wintering, then get roses which are 1 zone lower than your zone. So get zone 4 roses. I think that's important for climbing roses, because if you have a lot of die back, you'll never be satisfied with your results.

That being said if the die back bothers you, then you should protect them. You can do one of these two methods:

1. Minnesota tipping - dig a trench, partially dig up the root ball and tip the rose into the trench. Mound soil over top.

2. mound soil over base of rose about 2 feet of soil. Burlap the remaining canes.

Good luck, and if this advice isn't good, someone will reply.

Keep in mind, that I've never protected a climbing rose! :)

Carol

Here is a link to a nice little article of winter protection ideas compiled by a WI Master Gardener.

Here is a link that might be useful: Winter protection

Great advice from Carol, and good article.

We used to work hard at w/protecting, but found that we had more success if we just shoveled a couple of feet of topsoil at the base of each rose in October, and that's that. We get lots of snow cover usually. Rarely ever lose a rose, but they do start out short after pruning around mid-April.
:0) Phyl

Same thing here in NE Ohio. All I do is mound about a ft or two of soil over the rose's base for protection of the bud union. That's it! And they do come through the winter, although like phylrae said, they just start out shorter in the spring after pruning.

If you live where it freezes, thaws, snowmelts and a few other things, just don't even think about winter protection. The amount of canker damage, split cane damage and everything else the protection causes is more than the amount of winterkill damage. Other parts of the country can get away with it because they have less water available during the winter.

Currently, the absolute state-of-the-art form of New England winter protection really seems to be bringing the roses into attached, heated garages. This is after a few decades of fairly unsuccessful experimentation outside.

It depends on what kind of roses you are growing. If they are hybrid teas, then yes, you should protect by mounding soil, or some kind of loose mulch (I have used pine needles). Hybrid teas are very iffy in our climate and will likely always have dieback, even if you winter-protect, but some protection will increase your odds of not having them outright die.

I grow a lot of Austins and no longer winter protect. I have found that mounding them in Dec. with pine needles does help a bit for less dieback and does give them a better head start in the spring, but not enough of a difference to justify the extra work. Most of them die back to anywhere from a couple inches above ground to 12" or so, depending on how cold the winter and whether or not we have consistent snow cover over them (which is also an insulation). By June they have recovered most of their size that they lost to die back so I don't worry about it. Hybrid teas are less forgiving, however, and many will sulk and be less vigorous after winter dieback.

Then there are the old roses and rugosas that don't need any protection and are perfectly hardy with very little dieback, if any, during a typical northern New England winter.

You say you have "tall" and "climbing" roses--does the climber recover to climbing length after winter or does it struggle along?

If voles are a problem in your area, be careful about using mulch. They LOVE to hide in it while burrowing to eat the roots clean off the rose.

I only have 8 roses, although 4 of them are climbers. I'm probably going all out on them this winter since I only have 8 and I bought them all potted this spring.

Climbers:
Red Eden
White Eden
New Dawn
Zephirine Drouhin

Shrubs:
Graham Thomas
Pat Austin
William Shakespeare 2000
Belinda's Dream

I have a relatively large oak tree in front of my house, so I am going to use oak leaves. I'm going to buy some chicken wire or the equivalent of it, then prep with winter fertilizer, dump a bag of top soil over the base of the rose, then place the chicken wire around the rose as a cylinder than fill it with the oak leaves.

For the climbers, most people don't do anything. However, I am going to protect them as well as I am in a pretty stingy environement still and Red and White Eden havn't been widely tested in my area. This depends on how large the roses get this year, but I am going to dump a bag of top soil over the base, then chicken wire and put oak leaves around the base as well for the first couple feet...or however wide of a roll of chicen wire I buy. The remainder of the canes, I will wrap in burlap together. I don't expect my climbers to be any taller than 5ft this year though, so it's not very labor intensive. If they were mature huge climber like New Dawn, I would probably just dump a bag of soil over the base and leave it as it is as it would be a mature plant.

I don't do any winter protection. What I do is plant the rose deeply so the graft is about 4-6 inches below the surface of the soil. There is about 2-3 inches of wood mulch on top of that. My roses die to the ground but grow back quickly in the spring.

Wow everyone...!

Tons of great ideas and yet to me some seems like alot of work..especially the mounding of two feet of soil..

When I bought my roses this year, I should of thought of all this, but I just fell in love with so many at my nursery, that I bought the prettiest of all. I don't even know the names of them! All 8 I bought...
I planted them all in my beds with other well manicured plants , then with mulch..
I can't even imagine dumping two feet of soil around each rose on top of my mulch and other plants..What a mess that would be.
Do you suppose I should just dump extra mulch on the roses themselves? Or even dump leaves on them, like a huge pile?
My goodness. Maybe the ones I bought are hardy for this area..Maybe I will see what happens if some are left unprotected.

As for the ones I have had that do get die back, I will try the oak leaf method, or something after I reread these great ideas. But the mounding of dirt would certainly detroy my mulched beds by covering all the mulch and the other plants around the roses...

Thanks for all your help so far!

You can just rake it all out in the springtime. The mulch also will add some organic matter to your soil over time. Just rake the mound out and remulch if you wish.

My favorite article on winter protection of roses was written by a priest, Father Gervase Degenhardt.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Question of Winterizing

Winter protection begins with your rose purchase and how you plant. Buy the right roses for your growing zone. In my case, hardy shrub roses, Canadian Explorers, Canadian Parkland roses, and others that require little if any winter protection. If you want hybrid teas or any grafted roses, you'll have to bury the bud union as much as 6 inches below the soil surface to get any kind of hardiness. Even then some are too tender to survive our winters.
It's a fact of life in our zone you'll have a lot of dieback to prune off each spring. Except for my Canadian Explorers and hybrid rugosas, many of mine have to be pruned almost to the ground.
Hardy doesn't necessarily mean cane hardy. Many of my climbers start out short each spring but by early June all are in bloom and reach full height by mid July.
That's just the nature of growing roses in zone 5.
The only protection I apply to my 400 plus bushes are the leaves blown in by Mom Nature plus those directed towards the rose beds when I mow them. I lost two last year, The McCartney Rose and Taboo, both tender hybrid teas.
I prune all the dieback each spring and wonder if they'll come back and they always do.
Just make sure you keep them healthy during the growing season.