Cut them back to 4-6", repot in new soil and keep in warm but bright location until safe to put outside......around Mother's Day here :-)

if you have a spot for them, plant them now. Fall is the BEST time to plant perennials. Water them in well, they'll be fine, as long as they're in good shape when you plant them. I'd prepare the hole, make it about twice as big as the pot the plants is in now. Enrich w/some peat moss or compost if avail. Add in some gravel if your soil is wet/slow to drain. Maybe a little slow-release fertilizer, go easy, you don't want to burn the roots. Here is a link that might be useful: lilac planting tips from a seller

The Explorer series of roses were planted out in Kapuskasing, I believe, and whatever survived was selected. However, if you have discovered that some of the offspring are particularly attractive, I would make an assumption that since the parents are hardy, the offspring should be hardy, and I would go to the growing under lights forum and set up an indoor garden to actually grow them on through the winter. By doing this, next year you will have a good big bush to plant, and also in the middle of the winter, you can propagate your bush by taking cuttings. Given your climactic zone, I suspect your growing season is short, so multiply it with an indoor garden. I use 11 2-lamp t8 shoplight fixtures back to back, and suspended a 4 x 6' reinforced plywood from the ceiling by chains, and use that as a base for the garden, and grew out 72 Fair Bianca cuttings, taken in the fall, grown over the winter, and this year I have planted quite an awesome hedge with plants that look more like 2 years old, instead of just less than a year (which they actually are - 7 months to be precise). Indoor growing allows you to keep on the lights 24/7 continuous, and the amount of achieveable growth is prodigious and makes the effort definitely worthwhile. The heat from that bank of lamps (700-800 watts) helps to keep the house warm in the winter, so the electricity is essentially "free", because you have to heat your house anyways. I buy some heavy duty hardware from Home Depot, use 2 x 3" lumber to reinforce a 4 x 6' 1/2" plywood. This keeps the garden near the ceiling, so you can still use the floor space, if you have just a small house, like me. Sativa.

This is what I do, and I never lose any roses, and it doesn't matter what zone the roses are rated at: I overwinter my 50 roses in large pots in my garage with the 2 cars. LOL Three car garage. Here's what I do: - I keep deadheading until it's time for them to go into the garage. - I keep feeding them and watering well until it's time for them to go into the garage. -Then when the temperature gets to be about -6C I cut all the leaves off at the point they join the heavier stem. I don't cut any height off of the plant. - At this point I water them really, really well and move them by dolly into the garage. - I cover them with thick blankets, layers of flannel sheets or sleeping bags when the outside temp gets colder than -20C. - My garage is insulated. - Then I leave them alone in the dark. Doesn't matter if the garage door is opened and closed. - Around January, I look and see if they're dried out a bit. - If they are, then I water each rose 1/2 cup. - I repeat this every month. - As the weather starts warming up, I take off some blankets - so they don't start making new growth in the heat. - Any new growth should be broken off as you would thorns - just push them to the side, and they'll fall off. - If you have only a few pots - you can start taking them outside during the day when it gets about 5 C outside. Bring them inside until the night temperature doesn't drop below 2C. - Remember to water really well once you take them outside. - If you have a lot - then either wait until night tempreatures are 2C before you take them outside - or cover them with blankets at night. ----------------- This winter was really warm, so I didn't cover them at all. Hope this helps. :) Carol