I am going to tell you what I do, but this in no way means it will work for you;

As soon as I get my bands I pot them up in nursery containers. Let's say 5 gallon, which I sometimes use. I make sure they are watered thoroughly. When November comes I plant them pot and all. After the first heavy frost I place plastic netting in a 3 ft length X 1 foot high around the potted plant and fill with mulch. I do not use leaves because I have noticed the voles love to make their homes there, and will eat every possible root off the plant. Around mid April I remove (depending on weather of course) the mulch. I will then remove the plant from the pot and plant. I've experimented with how to best wover winter, and this seems the best for me.

"I keep thinking the ones I ordered are supposed to be very hardy and mother nature doesn't use a milk jug and yet the plants still grow and thrive."

True, but Mother Nature does not start her rooted cuttings in a protected greenhouse or attempt to grow warm climate roses in cold areas. Any that volunteer outdoors are acclimated throughout the season and not taken from a
protected environment and placed outdoors during the worst times of the year. Weak plants are culled naturally and not coddled.
When the ground freezes solid for prolonged periods as it does in our area, the tiny feeder roots die and regrow each spring when the soil warms. The larger fleshy roots are anchor roots. Bands have only feeder roots and a few small anchor roots. There is not enough food stored in tiny bands to sustain them through winter. New cuttings (bands) are tender and fragile.
All my attempts to over winter new cuttings failed until last winter when I built a large Styrofoam cold frame in my unheated greenhouse. I placed a string of Christmas lights and one 100 watt lightbulb on a thermostat set at 35 degrees in the coldframe. This kept my rooted cuttings just above freezing and all but a very few survived. Having some 200 this year, I'm building a larger setup.
Your idea seems sound but I'd worry about the fragile nature of bands, especialy those grown in warmer zones.
It can get quite cold in zone 5. With the minimal light and lack of warmth from what sun we get in winter, You might not want to take the chance.
Building a cold frame from 2" extruded styrofoam can be an easy task. A gutter thermostat with preset temperature controls is not expensive nor is a string of Christmas lights or a cord rigged for a 100 watt bulb.
A light wood frame covered with clear plastic will suffice for the top.
I think I have $30 tied up in mine. This is well worth the cost considering I got 95% of my rooted cuttings through the winter last year.
While many report success with bands overwintered ourdoors, more report failure or say nothing when they lose them.

ok, a couple questions

what's the advantage to planting them in a pot and placing it in the ground rather just in the ground directly? does it somehow protect the roots? are you mulching with peat moss instead of leaves?

as far as the cold frame I've thought about that too, but i'm afraid my 8 year old would destroy it (everything that can be taken apart, must be taken apart) -hence the milk jug idea, I wasn't sure if it would function as a cold frame (at least to some extent)

While I can't bring them in the house or the garage, I could probably steal an area of the back porch. It's not heated, but it's also attached to the house so it is warmer than outside (if the kids remember to shut the door). If it does get cold enough in there for the bands to go dormant, do I keep watering them or do I stop watering? Would it be bad for them for me to heat the back porch and keep them from going dormant this year?

Hello,
I'm starting to get anxiety attacks here...I live 90 miles SW of Chicago. I had bushes and things removed last week because I want to plant some roses. Then after researching I ordered 4. I think they are bands. I'm not a spring chicken, and I cannot be out there digging holes to set 5 gallons pots into, if thats what I'm supposed to do......I've grown just about eveything in my life, inside and out. Are these roses, which should be here in about a week, going to expire in the winter if I put the bands in the ground w a lot of mulch?? They will all be on the south side, some against the house..
I ordered 2 Distant Drums, 1 Don Juan, and 1 Reinne de Violet.....
Thank You!

My overwintering success was using an existing drainage ditch that is 4' deep at uphill beginning, then tapers to nothing over several hundred yards. I just plunked in the pots in early November, and begin piling on the raked leaves from the yard. Heavy snow cover this winter probably helped.
This spring, scrabbled around in the leaves, and resurrected the pots. Didn't lose a single one.
If you have any section of yard, backside of a garage or shed or barn that isn't "public", and have a serious pot ghetto, I'd consider having a short ditch dug. Just be sure that it is deeper at one end, so that as winter snow thaws, the runoff goes away from the roses. Even a coffin sized 7 X 2 feet would let you stagger a good number of pots. Get a local guy with a little backhoe, like a landscaper uses, not a big sitework guy

Or - use kidpower! ask if your local high school/career center has any ag or hort classes. They are usually trying to raise money for an FFA trip. Or try the JROTC - these kids came over and helped me winterize my house the first winter after my husband died, and wouldn't even consider a donation - their officer said they did it as a service project.

Thanks sunny.........
The more I think of it, those plants are going to be doing the same thing in the ground as they would be doing in 1 gal or 5 gal pots planted in the ground....everything will be mulched very well....just will plant the bands. If they don't make it, well, a learning experience for me..

Karl is correct; even well-mulched, bands probably will not make it through the winter directly in the ground in your zone without additional protection and heat. I wouldn't even try it with rugosas and certainly not with yours, Iris. You can pot them into 1 gallons and set them, all together, into some kind of cold frame--anything that lets the light thru and from which you can hang a light bulb. A giant clear plastic storage bin from wal-mart will work. Or you can order mini cold-frames on-line from garden supply houses.

You could put them in the ground, mulch them well and then set clear plastic containers over each of them thru which you can run lights or even keep little votive candles burning. Milk jugs won't work; the individual bands don't generate enough heat to compensate for the air temperature outside the jugs.

Re plastic jugs and other plastic covers - I never used them because a friend in southern Vt used them on some hybrid teas (that really don't want to grow up here in zone 5, most of 'em anyway, without lots of fussy micromanagement). What happened was the low western sun in late January into February heated them up so much that some of them fried and froze between late afternoon and midnite, and some of them got moldy.

I remember being in the same position last year and researching and asking and in some what of a panic.lol. I had 42 plus or minus bands, i potted into 5 gal and put on drip on the sunporch. In a short time they got attacked by aphids and started showing signs of nutrient deficiencies, chlorotic. The ones in the yard never got aphids. So I decided to just plant them. I am really surprised any lived with all the stress they got before going into the ground. I had a few that were so tiny i just knew i would lose, as ones that looked like that that i had planted in spring died. I didn't winter protect them. The problem here is no reliable snow cover. I lost 3 or 4 not from the winter but in early spring from canker, i even lost a spring planted rose from canker. I have some low areas in my yard and figure that was probably why, the cold damp and canker. I don't think you will find anyone, myself included, that will advise you to plant them in the ground.lol. Everyone is always overly cautious when it comes to those sorts of things! And the ones i thought were too tiny and not make it,did. Actually, i think i had fewer losses by planting in the fall than i did the spring. So anyway, i've decided to gamble again, this time with 60 roses that are a little less hardy types than the ones i planted last fall. I have lost more roses by either weedeating or mowing(they usually give you one time,not 2), and drowning (planting in low area), and canker. well actually that about covers all my casualties so far. I am sure if these were cuttings i planted i would have lost them all, so i believe there is a distinction between cuttings and bands, or at least the nurseries i have bought from. I've often wondered that if a person plants a rose and winter protects it and loses it, will they ever buy that same rose again and not winter protect it to see if it lives? I know the assumption is that it's not winter hardy, but the way i think, i would wonder if it just wasn't suffocated.lol! Plants are like kids, they'll make a liar out of you every time!

Unheated porch should be fine. Is it enclosed? Pot them up into 1 or 2 gallon pots, and hunker them against the house. You can put some bagged leaves or styro peanuts or whatever against them for insulation. You might consider a lightbulb for heat on very cold nights, or make your dog and cat and kid sleep out there. :-) I try to keep my coldframe no colder than 28 deg. and bands and newly rooted roses do just fine (I use x-mas lights or a single bulb at night). The pots will be frozen at 28 deg.

So, what if I planted ALL of them in a clear plastic container w some holes punched in the top?? Then would I keep that in a unheated garage or somewhere in the house?

I'm really not inclined at this time to be stringing up lights, Xmas lights, or candles.
I don't understand why my minatures survived when I planted those in the fall outside...
It's times like this when I wish I was a alcoholic! ;>)

What about burying them Minnesota tip style? Or hilling them up completely with garden soil? Is there some reason this would not work with bands?

I don't know how hardy your roses are, but the rugosa cuttings I took last fall overwintered directly in the ground with no protection at all. They made it through just fine.

What kind of roses did you order and where are they coming from?

Bands planted in the spring would probably be okay to overwinter outside, but they won't have enough time to root being planted in the fall.

Another option is to store the bands in dormant stage in a dark cool place. I overwinter all sorts of plants this way between my unheated attached garage and my root cellar. Neither area goes much below 35 degrees. If you have a place like this such as your garage this might work. Be sure the roses are kept in the dark so they don't try to grow. Water sparingly.

If you are able to do this, first pot up the bands when they arrive in at least 2-gallon pots. Let them grow outside in the sun as much as possible. Then around mid-November, or when temps start getting consistently below 30, bring them into the unheated garage and store in a dark place. Gradually bring them back out the following spring starting in March, moving the pots in and out depending on how warm/cold it is.

In my opinion, this is the easiest way. But the key is to have a garage or cellar (or what have you) that does not go much below freezing, if at all. If your garage is unattached, it likely will get too cold during mid-winter and the pots won't fare much better than if they were outside.

I don't think you should plant them because they're still basically babies. I always have plants left in pots that I haven't gotten planted by the time winter is arriving. I rarely lose a plant. When I have lost a plant, it's always looked half dead by the end of summer, so it wasn't in good shape to begin with. I've overwintered plants in pots in a variety of ways. I've put them in a window well and filled it with leaves. I've set them up next to the foundation of the house (on a side of the house that gets sun - not the north side), surrounded by either loose leaves piled up over and around them, or bags of leaves set around them with loose leaves piled up over them, or bales of straw surrounding them with loose leaves piled up over them. When I didn't have bags of leaves or bales of straw, I used my annual containers (18 inch pots), still filled with potting soil, to surround the overwintering plants, with loose leaves piled up over the plants. I never rig up any kind of light or heating device - that's way too much trouble for me! Your enclosed porch would work well, but I would put something around them to insulate the roots from the cold air. I wouldn't just set them out there with no protection at all.

Make sure they're watered before you set this up, and water them once a month (on a mild day) during the winter.

Deanna

thanks everyone! I knew they were probably too young to plant outside. I've been thinking maybe if I just bring them in the house (and guard them) it just might satisfy my rose addiction over the winter....maybe..the porch is attached and does have windows so they might try to grow there...I do have a root cellar, but I suspect it gets much colder than 30 in there. I also have my basement, but I've always wondered about mildew/mold if I put them in the dark in the basement.

My garage goes at least as low as 25 during the winter, and the roses are fine. The problem I've had with small ones is having them dry out. The big pots hold a lot more water, and can go much longer between waterings.

What you are looking for is somewhere that stays between about 25 and 45. Near the warmer end of that, they will need to be kept dark or the roses will start growing, and then they will need a lot more light. Basements tend to be much too warm for dormant storage unless they have dry-stone walls. Cool basements do well for growing roses under lights since the temperature and humidity aren't good for spider mites.

Free standing garage/barn is definitely going to get too cold in zone 5; water in my chicken coop in corner of barn will freeze without a heat source. I think that's why my success with pots in there was so minimal.
Isn't Minnesota tip basically burying the plant? To go through the effort of digging separate mini-graves for so many roses - Way to labor intensive. I'd consider that ditch idea - seriously, 12 pots, most of them at least 18" across and as high, moved with handtruck to garden cart, muscled up onto cart, rolled to ditch, muscled down into ditch, took less than an hour. The leaves I had to rake anyway. Uncovering in spring - a bit more than an hour, as I was moving the leaves aside as much as I could in order not to break canes as I lifted them up and out. That was the only hard part - because they were full of moisture and heavy. And of course, the ditch has been there forever, I just utilized an existing resource, and if you have to dig something long and deep yourself, maybe not attractive. But if you can get someone to do the digging....and it will be ready next year! The Minnesota tip thing has to be undone and redone....

If you keep them in the house instead of letting them go dormant, they'll get long, spindly branches and probably spider mites. Your root cellar might be the best bet, since it's a protected area underground. It doesn't matter if it gets below 30 degrees in there. It gets below 30 on the side of my house where my plants overwinter.

Deanna

so if I let them go dormant in the root cellar, I still water them about once a week, right?

No, that would be too much. I'd check them once a month, and don't water them if the soil is still somewhat damp. They probably won't lose moisture as fast as they would if they were outside.

Let us know in the spring how it went!

Deanna

Dormant roses do not use water. You keep them watered to prevent them from drying out. Water stored in the canes and roots will travel to a dry soil pulling the moisture from them. When the moisture is all gone from the plant it's dead as none of the dormant buds will leaf out in the spring.
So, you maintain enough moisture in the soil to keep the canes and roots hydrated but not wet. If you get snow, a shovel full on the plants once in a while should provide enough moisture to keep the plants hydrated. The snow will not harm a dormant rosebush.
That's why you want to make sure they're dormant before storing. The soil covering them when you bury them usually maintains that moisture.

Do you think it would be ok to bury them in a raised bed or do they have to go below the soil line?

I have had remarkable success over the years planting my rooted cuttings where I plan to grow them in the fall, but covering them with 2 litre pop bottles over winter. I am accused of growing them. Once the weather begins to warm in the spring, the pop bottle caps come off, the bottles might too if there is no chance of frost.

Lisa, the raised bed might work. The concern for planting them pot and all is that the pots might become little swimming pools and drown the bands because of the difference in soil types between what is in the pot and their surroundings.

Good luck with whatever course you choose.

Steve.

thank you Steve for the advice. I am planning to bury them sideways(laying flat aka Mn, tilt) over the winter. Ellie