I can give no advice based upon my own experience, but here is an old thread regarding the hardiness of Austin roses. There are a number of responses from zone 5 gardeners, and a nicely detailed one from zone 4 - 5.

Here is a link that might be useful: thread on hardiness of Austin roses

Here is another old thread regarding roses that are hardy to zone 4. This is a pretty long thread, and a quick scan shows only perhaps half a dozen Austins mentioned, but maybe you will find some useful information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ridiculously healthy roses here in zone 4

This post was edited by plantloverkat on Sat, Dec 27, 14 at 11:26

Thank you both very much. I am taking a peek at them now - this should give me some safe options!

Michaela

Good Morning Michaela,

First of all, I will say, it is difficult to give you very precise information without knowing where you live. Not all zone 5's are the same. Knowing your location and the minimum winter low temperatures you experience can help. How far south you are, the length of your winter and the length of the growing season, will all have an effect, even if the winter is cold. Also, the number of freeze thaw cycles you experience where you garden will have a big effect on tender rose survival rates.

Many Austin roses are borderline hardy in zone 5B, by borderline, I mean they will often have significant freeze damage if left unprotected, but come back and bloom as long as they are planted deep, The graft must be at least 10 cm (4 inches) below the soil line. If you are in 5a, then you will have much better luck if you do some winter protection. You will also find that tender roses take longer to establish in a cold zone. My general rule of thumb is at least 3 years for grafted plants and 4 or more for own root bands. That is also affected greatly by the vigour of the variety you choose to grow. That means you have to be more patient with tender roses than those who grow them in warmer climates. Finally, the more cane you can get to survive the winter, the better your roses will perform. That means that some sort of effective winter protection will pay big benefits.

I personally protect my roses by wrapping with straw. Of the roses you list, I grew Heritage and still grow Jude the Obscure. Heritage is too tender for my climate and never performed. I find Jude to be a slow starter, she has just finished her third season and is now starting to put on some sturdy canes, she was a wimpy, weak caned thing for the first two seasons. But she did somewhat better last summer.

I have no personal experience with the others you list, but note that both Strawberry Hill and Gentle Hermione get excellent ratings for cold hardiness on Help Me Find Roses, and are grown in zone 5 gardens in places such as Ohio and Moscow. So both would be worth a try.

In my garden, the very best for cold hardiness, vigour and bloom performance are: Crocus Rose, Saint Cecelia, Redoute, The Reeve, Charles Darwin and Lilian Austin.

Hope this helps and good luck. Cheers,

Rick

Hi Rick, thank you so much for your lovely post. I am in Southern Iowa. Just south of Des Moines. We had a brutal winter last year as many did, but this year we've had a very mild winter and some of my roses aren't even fully dormant yet. So I've been trying to plant roses that are hardy to zone 4 or cooler when possible.

I would be buying from Heirloom Roses, so I believe those are all ownroot.

Thank you for those suggestions. Am going to take a look now. Do you just bundle the straw up at the base in a mound?

Thanks again - very helpful!

Michaela

Everyone had a brutal winter last year. Thankfully this one so far has been easier. I lost 67 roses last year but I can tell you that both my Golden Celebration and Graham Thomas weren't among them. I did have to prune them back severely, however, they grew back very vigorously and bloomed well. My GC is about 20 years old and has always wintered strongly. GT is maybe 8 years now and also a good wintering rose. They're both in the ground and get little or no protection. Although the English climate the DAs were bred for is generally milder than ours they seem to handle winter here with little problem at all.

Hi Michaela,

Thanks for the location information. I looked up climate norm and climate extreme data for Des Moines. I found out that the average winter low temperature for January is around 14 F and that the newest hardiness USDA zone map shows you are likely in zone 5b. That is good news, you are in a much warmer climate than where I grow my Austins.

I have attached a link to a document produced by Iowa State University on caring for roses. It includes some instructions on winter protection. It talks amongst other things about mounding, and many rosarians do mound soil. I myself no longer do that, I use dry straw. I have found that it is hard to get the frozen soil off in spring and that my roses often get stem canker when mounded with soil or other mulch that freezes and gets too wet.

To winter protect, I cut my plants back to about 18 inches or so and tie the remaining canes together. I then wrap them in a flake of straw and tie that around them as well. That has proven to be the best method I've tried. Straw protects the stems from cold wind desication and keeps the canes dry.The straw must go on after the ground is frozen and can come off as soon as temperatures moderate and the snow is gone. There are many other ways of winter protecting roses, including using mulch and leaves. But straw works best for me and takes me about one day to protect about 70 rose plants in late November or early December. It is even quicker to take it off in spring.

Iowa is very famous in the North American rose world with Dr. Griffith Buck and his roses originating there. You have a great cold zone rose resource in your state with the University of Iowa and the Reiman Gardens just north of Des Moins. They have a master gardener outreach program that you might access as well.

I suspect that you should be able to grow most Austin roses quite well in your zone. Others on the forum from similar zones do so very well.

Since you are from Iowa, you might also be interested in trying some of Dr. Bucks roses in your garden as well. I grow a number; Quietness, Folksinger, Distant Drums, Pearlie Mae, Prairie Harvest, Prairie Sunrise and Hawkeye Belle. They are all superb roses for your climate and are in fact quite similar to Austin roses with respect to winter hardiness.

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Prairie Sunrise

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Prairie Harvest

Good luck with your new rose garden, enjoy it.

Cheers, Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: Caring for Roses in Iowa, Iowa State University

Hi, I grow Tamora with no winter protection.

Like Rick, I plant my bud union 4-6" below the soil level. I think you can grow/ experiment planting many tender rose this way.

And if you have adequate snow cover, it helps a lot....

Thank you everyone for your feedback! I so appreciate it.

Seil, I hope that this winter is better to us. Only having a little over 15 roses so far, I can't imagine how hard all those losses were. Not just financially, all the hard work that goes into them. It would break my heart.

Rick - thanks for the feedback. The last few years our lows have been a little colder than 14, that's why I've been trying to plant roses that weren't hardy right to zone 5. I know last year was a bad winter for everyone, but in case this is the new norm I wanted to be prepared. Although this winter has been super warm and we have had very little snow. So hard to know what to expect! Glad to hear you are able to grow them in your climate, that gives me hope. I will try the straw next winter for roses I am worried about! That's a great idea. I planned to pile snow on them as I heard that helps, but we haven't had much yet.

I have two Carefree Beauties growing in my garden from Dr. Buck. I love them & am anxious for them to come back next year. The blooms are so pretty they seem to glow. I will check out some of his others!

Tamora, thank you! I am going to give Heritage a shot this year and see how that goes. Antique Rose Emporium has them in 2 gallon pots, so I think getting a more mature one will give me better odds if I get it in the spring and give it all summer to get established.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback. So excited to keep expanding the types of roses I grow!

HI Michaela

It's good to know your region of zone 5 - Rick is right that it can make a lot of difference. Since I'm no more than 3 hours due west of you on I-80, I can give you some feedback from essentially your region of the country. We're a little drier than you are in the Des Moines area, and perhaps a touch windier and colder at times, but I think I can give you a feel of what to expect for your roses.

The good news is that for us the Austin roses are reliably hardy over the winter, at least once they get established. Since you'll be buying your roses as bands, you'll want to plant them right around the end of frost (end of April for us) to give them maximum time to settle in before the winter, and make sure they get regular water in the summer if you hit a dry spell. As long as the Austins you mention survive their first winter, you should have little trouble with winter survival. I have nearly 40 Austins here in Lincoln, and even in last year's brutal winter I don't think I lost any of them. That's even better than one of my other reliable type of roses - the Easy Elegance roses by Ping LIm (Earl May's has these among other nurseries).If you like the Carefree Beauty you might like these Easy Elegance roses - totally carefree and hardy for me, but not quite as elegant a flower as the Austins (with the possible exception of my favorite Sweet Fragrance).

I grow Heritage and it has been cane hardy most years, and many of my Austins are in my zone 4 pockets to the north and east of my house. The east side is the only place I've ever lost an Austin (Sophy's Rose), and there are at least 10 in those two spots of my yard happily growing in essentially zone 4 conditions. You might wish to winter protect in your first winter - the straw Rick suggests is a good idea, or my cheap-gardener method is to stack filled leaf bags around the roses (but not covering them) making little "down coats" to protect them from the wind. After that, I really wouldn't worry the second winter, though I tend to winter protect every rose out of sheer laziness - I am down to protecting a wind barrier of leaf bags only around the edge of the bed however, for the most part.

The only thing that might affect your Austins in Iowa might be blackspot, which tends to be happier in moister climates than mine. I don't think it would defoliate anything too much like it does on the East coast, but you might have to put up with some spots on the leaves now and then. I don't find it affects their hardiness or bloom that much for me, so you can experiment with how much blackspot bugs you or not (I'm way too lazy to spray).

Sounds like you've chosen some nice roses and you should be happy with your choices. Just give then some sun and water and don't fuss too much - they're still babies in their first year and really aren't likely to bloom all that much till their third year.

Have fun!

Cynthia

Hi Cynthia,

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate all your info. I have decided to get Heritage from Antique Emporium, because they have two gallon roses for not much more than the bands from Heirloom so hopefully that will help it get settled in. I plan on having the order shipped the first week of May, since April tends to get cold here quite often.

I am quite fond of Easy Elegance Roses! I have Kashmir, Champagne Wishes, High Voltage that I added this year and they are wonderful. I have Sweet Fragrance on order for the spring. I got Kashmir at Earl May during their July Fun Money Promotion but I usually get them at our local nursery because they're only $25 vs Earl May's $39.95. I'm glad to hear you like Sweet Fragrance! I fell in love with that one in October during Earl May's clearance sale, but I resisted the urge to buy it and just got it ordered for spring. It was covered in blooms and was just gorgeous. Can't wait to add that one to my garden! Is it fragrant like the name would suggest?

I've had a little bit of black spot, but nothing too bad so far with my other roses. I don't like to spray anything in my garden, since I encourage lots of pollinators to come into my garden!

Thanks everyone, looking forward to my first Austin Rose!

I haven't posted anything here for a very long time, but my Abraham Darby made it through the last three nasty winters fabulously. Here in ND it doesn't get very tall, but I've enjoyed the envy of my neighbors ever since he joined my "family" of northern hardy old and modern roses.

Hi Leah! That's so great that it survives for you in zone 3! That's wonderful. That rose is gorgeous... no wonder they are envious.

Antique Emporium also has Abraham Darby. So now I have to decide between that one, and Heritage!

Michaela

Hi Michaela

How funny that you bought Kashmir with your July Earl May fun money - I bought the exact same rose myself with the July fun money, but it was already discounted a bit. I agree that Earl May has greatly overpriced roses and not much of a selection - if you ever get out to Omaha, Mulhall's at 114th and Maple has every Easy Elegance rose you've ever heard of and several not on HMF, all for around $25 too.

As for Sweet Fragrance, I dearly love the rose and the intensely saturated peach color of the blooms, but the one thing I can't detect at all is any fragrance. I presume that it must smell like something to someone to warrant the name, but it smells just like any other average shrub rose (meaning vaguely green but nothing else). Bear in mind that I have a poor nose for flowers with all my allergies, but I haven't heard glowing remarks from others on this rose's fragrance either. Regardless, it's definitely worth it.

Have fun with your Austin rose - once you get started it's hard to stop!

Cynthia

Hi Cynthia - what are the odds we both bought Kashmir w/ our fun money! That is too funny. I hope you are liking Kashmir. I'm eager to see it again in the spring.

July Fun Money is the best. I have found with most of the garden centers here they either have expensive shrubs or expensive perennials/annuals. The places I go to get my roses for $25 have $10 perennials... and places like Earl May that have $40 roses charge $4.99 for their perennials/annuals. I just drive around to all the places in my area and get the best deals at all of them! Last year I got a ton of miniature roses from Menards for $2 a piece.

Oh wow... I could probably justify a weekend trip to Omaha just for that alone! But my husband hasn't been to the Henry Doorly Zoo since he was a kid so we will probably head that way this summer anyways for a little vacation! Thanks for letting me know, very excited to check that out!

I hadn't heard anyone talking about fragrance for Sweet Fragrance so I was wondering! I don't get too worked up about scent either way, I care more about blooms and vigor and hardiness than the scent so I will still be happy to add it to my garden!

Thank you! I feel like I'm already addicted and I haven't even grown one yet. I've already ordered two A Shropshire Lads, and have Abraham Darby, Graham Thomas, and Heritage on my list to purchase for spring. This could be dangerous. I'm going to run out of room soon and this will only be my 3rd year in our home.

Michaela