petals, in our zone, we really don't have to do much. I've learned to keep spraying fungicide until the first frost, otherwise a few warmish days can make black spot go berserk. Once we have a hard frost, I usually 'top' my roses. That means I just cut down any long canes. I do this to keep any really long canes from blowing around in winter storms and perhaps breaking off, and to neaten up the yard for winter. Also you can use a lime sulphur dormant spray any time the roses are dormant. This kills fungus spores and will help prevent bs. It can also help to remove any remaining leaves from the previous year. You may find that you have one or two roses that are sensitive to cold. The one I have is Don Juan. It seems to suffer some cane damage each year. I'm replacing the one I have because I think it's virused and it's not doing well. But for the most part, we don't need to do any winter protection and in fact, burying canes in our zone can cause problems with mold and canker.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've been tempted to make this video for a while but as you all point out the situation is so different for everyone. But if I do go ahead can I start with a few general rules of thumb like. 1) It begins, as mad gallica points out, with selecting a hardy rose for your area. While the guidelines from nurseries and sites like HMF are a good place to begin there is nothing like local knowledge via forums, rose societies, garden clubs etc. 2) If you buy a grafted rose bury the bud union deep like 4"-6". 3) Use a hardwood mulch for insulation and anyway this should always be part of your regular gardening routine. 4) Piling up leaves and/or mulch depends on the kind of winters you get. Wet winters with periods of warm temps can lead to problems like canker etc when you pile up mulch so it's best not to. If you live in an area with dry winters it's okay to do so. 5) Keep your roses healthy throughout the year. A healthier rose can better survive a winter. Now to me a healthy rose to survive winter means a rose that is NOT pampered all year but instead is left to, as I talk about in my other videos, fend for itself so it pushes out deep roots and builds up immunity to the local pathogens. 6) Here is my question to all of you. I realize where you live it's best to purchase an older plant and that usually means grafted. However when you purchase an own root band and it's delivery to you in say spring or summer what do you do? Plant right away, grow it on in a larger pot and plant in fall, keep it in the pot for a year overwintering it in the garage. I'll need to address this. Keep in mind nothing complicated - this is meant to be simple. Anything else I need to cover?

It is optional for minis for winterizing I'm zone 5/b 6 Mass. Yes they are winter hardy when they come from a store I just winterize mine anyways if you opt. to do so this is how. The weekend befor Thanksgiving you can if you want Trim it down to 1 foot high into a dome shape then cover it up with eiter hay or dry leaves in a manner so that 2-3 inches of cane and leaves are still exposed and top it off with some medium sized sticks to hold the hay or leaves at very least let one inch of cane or leaves exposed. Pine tree brances work best to hold down leaves so they dont blow away When and if it warms up in late Feb/safe is early March you can remove the sticks and some of the hay this will help em breath a bit better continue removing the rest of the hay late March. There will be some odd looking small canes coming out of the ground in spring. Minis are own root growers there not suckers they will catch up and flower but do trim off dead looking leaves and cut back blacked parts of canes if any.

Hi Pauline, In Florida the temperature is probably high enough that your roses aren't going dormant. That's not terrible for some varieties that don't need winter chill to flower. I think some people defoliate their roses to induce dormancy, but you probably don't need to do that. If you expect temperatures to get colder, then wait and see if the roses go dormant (lose leaves). If that happens, you want to prune when the weather is changing, and the roses are coming out of dormancy for the spring. If it is so warm in Jacksonville that your roses never go fully dormant, then you can just prune them when you feel like it. Pruning them won't cause them to go dormant -- quite the opposite, it will wake them up and send the message to them that they need to grow. This question isn't really applicable to strictly organic rose growing, so next time you have a question about pruning, or if you want more advice about this, ask on the Rose forum, not the Organic Rose forum. There are Florida-based rose growers on that forum who can give you more specific advice, and people check that forum more frequently than this one. Good luck!