Contact the Raleigh Rose Society for specific information Raleigh Rose Society Apex, NC David Illg, President 919-779-2969 dsillg@mindspring.com They should be able to give you the best advice for your area. Diane's comment "never "too late" but it might be "too early", is absolutely correct. Just ask all those who pruned too early last year and got caught by the Easter Freeze. Following is a link to the Raleigh RS monthly guide for growing roses the Raleigh area. Here is a link that might be useful: Monthly guide

I haven't paid any attention to the 5-leaflet rule for twenty years. It is OK (not necessarily optimal) if you have only hybrid tea roses, but harmful with some cluster-blooming roses, where it can lead you to discard half the plant unnecessarily. These are varieties that form large trusses and candelabra. Deadheading only helps the plant if that variety sets a lot of hips (fruit), and many varieties do not. Many roses do just fine without being deadheaded. If you want to fuss with your roses, just pop off the blooms as they fade. When the whole cluster is gone, you can either leave the branching stem tissue or cut it back some, but don't sacrifice a lot of cane unless the plant is getting too tall. The branching stem tissue is capable of producing shoots wherever there is any kind of leaf or leaflike bract. Once the rose produces new shoots, you can cut off the stem tissue above that if you want. The only rule I follow in deadheading is to remove the minimum stem tissue until the roses gets as big as I want it to be, and to take long stems if the rose is getting too tall or floppy.

I think Californians really need to think about how, when and why they prune roses here. Nobody should be surprised about the way roses act well here -- even without the copious watering, the fertilizing, the winter (or any!) pruning . We've simply gone along with what the Eastern rose gardeners tell us, via magazine and books from back there. It's even too bad that the American Rose Society, through its Master Rosarian program, perpetuates these regional processes throughout the whole country. Fact is, roses are simply shrubs; hybrid shrubs with the bulk of their genetics from Rosa chinensis, a subtropical evergreen rose species. Being such, it really doesn't "need" pruning in the winter time. It's actually best to prune it during the growing season, much as one would do with any evergreen repeat-blooming shrub, keeping it at a size and shape we want, mostly by cutting off bloomed-out stems. As long as we cut back cleanly to some husky wood, the rose responds positively all year long. If we do this, we have minimal pruning -- and sometimes NO pruning -- to do in the winter. We're trapped into thinking that we need to prune roses hard (to short stubs near the ground) because that's what they do back in cold country where they think it's going to save the rose tops from cold freezes. Even that's a myth. More than that, we're trapped into thinking that we need to cut off the water, let rose hips form, put on crushed ice and all kinds of silly tricks to get our roses to go into "dormancy". They won't, they can't, they're Rosa chinensis genes. Beyond winter chores, we're trapped into thinking we need to fertilize roses often and heavily. Some old cutlivars maybe. The newer ones much less. When planted in heavy soil, which contains good nutrients, roses are very happy. When planted in sandy soil, roses sulk. And amending is a myth, too. We've been convinced that roses need gobs of water. Roses in heavy soil, when trained with good soakings deeply and infrequently (once every 3-4 weeks in summer), become extraordinarily drought-tolerant. When planted in sand or put on a co-dependent drip system, they become sissies. And there are hundreds of rose cultivars that are disease-free and have self-cleaning blossoms so maintenance is lowered even more. Problem is, too many gardeners plant old problem-ridden cultivars, plant them in sandy soil, waste their time with amendments, use drip systems and over-fertilize and then tell everyone how problematic roses are. Surprised? Joe

Well..New.. They should be feeling the weather by now.. and going dormant... I've had roses on my roof top for decades in containers.. the biggest problem isn't them getting too cold.. but warming up too early in the spring.. at first I'd cover them with pine limbs from Christmas trees... I'd recycle off the street.p the roses in a bunch together.. and cover them.. but I haven't done that in a very long time.. yes.. the bigger the container the best chance for them to be surviving.. So.. what I've get found.. is on the roof.. it will get real warm in the late bright winter days...this will drive them out of dormancy.. start the juices flowing .. only to be frozen again during a cold night.. this shatters them internally.. on a cellular level.. water taken up is frozen.. it expands..and shatters the cell walls..alayer of bubblerap might cause them to get real warm from the roof surface below.. and the heat held in by the wrap.. I'd get the planters up off the roof.. first... then perhapsawrap.. as the sun shinning on the pots themselves will heat it up...also.. you want to delay pruning in the spring... till late.. as this is a spur to them breaking dormancy also.. So.. what I do is to allow them to get as cold as they need to..and keep them shaded.. [ out of the direct sun helps ] cool and alseep... till it is considerably warm... I've gone to building up foam planters to keep them in.. andI've built a foam panneled cool room up on my roof... to house tropicals through the winter.. It's 49 in there right now. with their little heater set to NO FREEZE.. it's about 36 outside.. now.. Well the best of luck there.. if I can be of any help.. just write to me Gordon