The garage is fine. That pale growth is due to lack of sunlight. I get it on my pots buried in leaves too. It's less of a problem than taking them out too soon and having them freeze. Sometimes it will green up once out in the light and sometimes it just drops off when new growth starts. I don't take my pots out until night time temps are steadily remaining above freezing. Usually that's the beginning of April for me. The hardest thing on the roses is that yo-yoing freeze/thaw. They only have so much energy stored in the roots and canes. If they start to grow and then all that new growth is frozen off and they have to grow again they can only do that a couple of times before the stores are used up and they die. Unless you want to take them out during the day and then put them back in every night leave them in the garage until the nights are above freezing and don't worry about that pale growth.

I had a miniature tree rose in my shed (unwrapped) last winter. It survived all winter and then died in the Easter freeze. Very disappointing. Never wanting to say die I bought I another tree rose this spring, Baby Blanket, but it's not a mini. I have it in my shed and hope it will make it. I have thought about wrapping it too but I'm concerned about condensation building up inside the wrappings and then freezing. I'll be interested in hearing any answers to your question too.

Hi Lime. My property is surrounded by gigantic trees and we probably get depths of more like four feet of leaves every week for about two months straight here. It's my worst gardening nightmare every year! I usually just handpick out as many leaves as I can between the canes and whatever is left in Spring I deal with it then, and hopefully some of them have turned themselves into fallen compost/mulch. It'll be interesting to see if anyone has another way of dealing with this that's easier. As I read this I was thinking maybe those plasic milk carton crates would work somewhat, but then you'd have to look at that ugliness lurking outside, and you'd be adding shade that's not wanted in the process. -Nan

The cactus soil should work OK. Some people will add sand and perlite to their mix so that should be fine. I wouldn't use the orchid mix because it's too chunky and won't retain enough moisture. Yes, outside is always best for roses. Since it's late in the season you could wait for spring to repot it. Let it go completely dormant before putting it in winter storage. An unheated, insulated garage works best, off the concrete and watered some monthly. If you don't have a garage you can sink the entire pot in the ground and mulch the plant for winter.