Kick them outside.

They can probably spend the whole winter nestled up against the house. If it gets really cold (really cold being single digits, NOT freezing) they can come inside for a few days until it warms up.

Yep, they need to go outside. What I do with potted roses is shove them up against the house and then drape some kind of covering over the pots. Roses are not indoor plants. They'll be happy outdoors so long as temps stay above the teens. Snow cover would be great insulation if you get that where you are. I don't so I use leaves or wood shavings, or sink the pots in the ground, or swaddle them in astro turf. The roots are the most delicate part.

Being up against the house gives them a bit of protection. Being indoors gives them too much warmth and not enough light. They try to grow, but there's not enough light for photosynthesis so they starve themselves trying to find the light.

Outside pronto! Roses hate being inside. No one would want to live in a house that had enough humidity for a rose to be happy and as Reg said even in the sun room they don't get enough light for photosynthesis. So they're trying to grow because of the warmth and do not have adequate conditions to feed them selves (that white growth). They'll use up any energy stores they have quickly and will die.

I put mine against the back, south facing, wall of my house. I do surround them with burlap packed with leaves to insulate the pots. I've done this with anywhere from 30 to 60 pots for the past 5 winters with nearly no losses.

ellearose t is in zone 6B if you leave them outside they will not make it 99% sure

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If it gets really cold (really cold being single digits, NOT freezing) "

where do you live buddy Africa its early November here in zone 6B and were already starting to go into double-digit freezing temps overnight

Hrose,
I have never tried overwintering them in a container but I know Seil is also in zone 6b and she is an expert on overwintering them outside in containers so I would trust that it can be done.

I've been growing roses outside in containers for a good 15 plus years now. While I'm not in your zone, our area is notorious for erractic weather. Single digit and even a sub-zero dip are not unheard of around here. 98% of my potted roses have survived. If you grow modern roses (HT's, Floribundas, minis etc.) many of the yellows and oranges can be more winter tender then other colors, so additional protection may be warrented. Also the bigger the pot the less the problems. Any pot under 12 inches (5 gallon) can experience more damage. Not that you want to put a small rose in a big pot of soil, but additional warmth may be needed (such as surrounding it with the larger roses in pots (group hug), or closer to the wall, or even putting the smaller rose pot in a larger empty pot and filling the void between the two with straw, bark mulch, styrofoam peanuts etc.).....Where you place the rose is also important. Next to a wall is good, and that wall should be on the West or South side. The east side will have more problems. Canes, frozen overnight, are suddenly hit by the warmth of the rising sun, and their cells can burst from the abrupt change in temperature. I have several roses on the East side, and they have had more cane damage then those I've placed on the west/south side in a cold winter. The north side doesn't work for obvious reasons....To echo others advice, get your roses outside if at all possible, don't overwater and give extra protection if needed. No one is in charge of mother nature, but with a little care there's a good possiblity that you will be successful....Maryl

I have everything from HTs (a lot of those, I exhibit) to OGRs and every class in between growing in pots and with a very few exceptions (and those few weren't too healthy going into winter) they have survived 5 winters now. Some of those winters were mild, like last year's, some of them were snowy while others weren't and some of them were bitter cold and no snow cover at all. Through all of it my potted roses (as I said earlier anywhere from 30 to 60 pots a year) survived outside against the house, wrapped in burlap and packed with leaves.

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These photos are from winter 2010/11.

Thanks so much for the advice guys!

I'll get my roses out pronto! I assume I should cut all leaves off? My roses are only 1-3ft in heat-- but should I still prune back at all?

This might be a dumb question: but where's the best place to get burlap? If I wanted to use it, I have a whole bunch of this pink fabric I don't care about (pretty thin tho)--- could I use that or does the burlap have special qualities?

You don't have to pull the leaves off. Just leave them. They'll feed the rose as long as they can which is a good thing. Don't prune them now. Wait until spring to do any pruning. You'll be able to tell what has died back from winter and what is still green and healthy then.

No, burlap doesn't have any special qualities. It's just sturdy and holds up well to the weather. It's also a loose weave so that air can circulate through it. You should be able to find it at places like Lowes and Home Depot or most hardware stores and nurseries also carry it. It's not very expensive and comes in a big roll. Your pink fabric might work OK but with out knowing what it's made of I can't say for sure.

Don't rush them into winter protection too early. You want them to be completely dormant before you put them away. I wait until we have had at least two really hard freezes and the ground is starting to freeze before I do mine. I didn't do mine last year until the second week in December.

Depending on where you are, you may never get the serious winter conditions necessary for winter protection. To do that, you need to be somewhere where it freezes, and stays frozen. Strictly speaking, every time it defrosts, all that stuff should come off until it freezes again. Otherwise you end up with a fungal mess.

Seil - your photo is such a huge reality check. Shouldn't be for me as I lived the first 1/3 of my life in upstate NY, but my brain can hardly wrap around roses covered in snow after being in sunny California for so long...

That looks like a LOT of work, getting all of those roses ready for winter.

Mad, I've never had a "fungal mess" as a result of my winter protection. Yes, I get black spot and powdery mildew around here but even the roses in the ground get that and I rarely cover them with anything. The fungal spores are out there and ready to grow when the weather conditions are right. I've never gotten canker or galls on my potted roses which could be a problem I suppose. But the leaves really only cover and insulate the pots, not the canes, so it's very open and air does circulate through it.

Harmony, it really isn't that hard to do. It usually takes one sunny Saturday afternoon. And of course would be less work with fewer pots. I keep trying to cut them back but somehow....there's always another one I NEED to have, lol! I actually did cut them down by half from the high point of 60 by putting in a new bed two seasons ago. I've crept back up to 45 this summer!

The pots all get moved in and lined up against the wall. The stakes go in and the burlap is staple gunned to the stakes and then we start packing in the leaves. Once it's packed his nibbs goes in and I clean up the mess! I shouldn't complain, he does the heavy lifting for me. In April (usually) it gets reversed. I pull off what leaves I can from the top first. Then I peel off the burlap and pull up the stakes. Next I pull the pots out and then clean up the rest of the leaves. That strip along the back of the house is my veggie garden during the summer but there are a few perennials in there too so I have to get the pots off early so they can come up.

In my warmer zone, fortunately, I have to do little in the way of added protection. I first got the idea of leaving roses outside when I saw a picture of a Dallas rose grower who had all his miniature rose pots outside sitting under a tree over winter. Now Dallas is warmer by a zone or so then I am, but still it turned on the light bulb for me. So here is my picture of some of my rose pots sitting on the driveway when a snow storm hit in November. Leaves still on them and with no added protection. They all survived just fine. Snow is a great insulator. Outside of clustering them all together, this is almost always how they are left over winter. The driveway faces west btw.I'm not advising this for people in colder zones then mine, but like the Dallas picture inspired me, perhaps there are others in warmer zones who would like to experiment with growing roses in containers...Maryl
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This year Lowes had burlap but not HD.

I wrap the roses individually with burlap--they also protect the canes from snapping off in bad weather.

I don't fill my burlap with anything.

just a thought - before putting them outside (I agree, they should not be in a warm basement) you will need to give them a bit of transition time to 'harden off'. Put them out in the day then either move them indoors at night for a week or so, or cover them in some way. It will be too much of a shock to just get put outside after being in a warm indoor setting so they will need a period of time to get used to a cooler location.