If the rose is grafted, bury the bud union.

Walk away.

In the northeast, this works as well as anything.

Austins shouldn't have winterkill problems in 6a. That is a perfectly reasonable zone for many of them.

Here in Zone 6, I do nothing to protect my roses--and some springs, I regret it, but usually all my roses make it through unless we have had an exceptionally nasty winter (like we did a couple years ago).

That said, a number of my roses get a little bit of protection from the oak leaves that blow through my yard from my neighbor's trees--2 oaks on east side and 1 oak on the south side across the alley. A little erratic--but it does help a bit and I've been known occasionally to kick a pile of leaves over towards a rose if Mother Nature missed the bush.

Kate

If they're in the ground you've already given them the best protection. All you can do is wait and hope the polar winter isn't too much for them. If they're in pots they need some kind of good wind protection to prevent dehydration. If exposed to the elements they'll get enough water through snow and rain. If they are covered and can't get precipitated on then you need to water them some all winter. I place all my pots together, wrap them in a burlap wind break and stuff them with leaves. They sit outside against the South wall of my house all winter. I snow blow the patio snow ON them when we snow blow. It helps to both insulate them and keep them hydrated. The one tree rose I have goes in the shed and I place a shovel of snow on the soil each time it snows. If there isn't any snow I bring a gallon milk jug of water out to it once a month all winter. I've had fairly good luck with these methods. I did lose quite a few the second polar winter but it was pretty evenly split between the ones in the pots and the ones in the ground. Some had managed to struggle out of the first polar winter but never really got strong enough to make it through the second one. Last winter was a mild one for us and the roses did very well. I'm worrying about this one though...

With me, I invested way too much money to neglect them and to leave them to the elements..I would loose them every year, even if the bud union was buried..Some would make it some would not. I am not willing to risk it any longer. Last year was one of the mildest winter on record, and once they commenced growing in February of all months, they froze to death when temps dropped to the teens for more than three nights in a row in March..Too me, the weather is way to fickle for me to take any more chances and run to the nursery every spring for new ones, or to start from the ground up again over and over with a majority of the canes dead and brown to the ground.....In fact, If I can get just one Rose bush to come back nice and strong for more than a year, I might finally get a bush loaded with fragrant blooms...

What I did was make cylinders out of chicken wire 3 inches wider than the rose bush itself..I waited until they finally went dormant a month ago and then tied the canes like a Tea Pee about 2 to three feet high.The cylinders are 3 feet high..I sprayed all the canes with 'Wilt Proof' three times and it left a nice wax coating on the canes to prevent frost burn or dried out canes..Then I filled the cylinders with a good pine mulch half high then the rest with leaves...So far so good. They will get all the moisture they need without rotting while staying very protected...Let's see what happens..I can throw all the snow I want on them without breaking the canes and cover them even more with snow..I like the feeling that they are safe and tucked away until the forsythia start blooming...Then I will pull all the mulch back at that time, prune what is hopefully nice green canes and get a great start for spring, never mind from the ground up if I am lucky)

Pics to come soon..

Mikerno,

Now you're talking! Good job! If you could have done anything more I don' t know what?

I, like you, also cannot afford to lose roses themselves, or the lost time of the years it takes a rose to grow from liner to maturity, that replaces a well grown mature bush which dies from my negligence by not protecting it over winter.

The amount of care roses take is considerable. Why drop the ball and fail to winterize.

The only things that I do differently are, instead of a chicken wire cylinder I make a heavy roofing paper cylinder. I store them in the basement over summer. They last a few years, not as long as chicken wire will. The advantage, if any, is their wind break function. It's also easy to slide them off in spring leaving the pine bark mulch disturbed as little as possible. I remove the mulch a little at a time over the weeks ahead so as not to shock the bush. The removed mulch is just spread around the rose bed as the annual mulch. Sometimes I need more mulch to finish the rose bed. I do not use an anti-dessicant. So you are in a better league than me.

Thanks Moses and everyone else..I hope this works out..That is why I came here to share...If it does, this system just may help out many others living in climate zones like I with very brutal winters who want to put their roses...

By the way, many of mine are not winter hardy for my zone, but I think they say they are. I just found out many are hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras ...I find that some of these are some of the most fragrant I have ever smelled..A couple such are the Barbara Streisand Rose & Pope John Paul II that I have already lost previously due to a lack of protection..These are my favorite rose types..

I'm on the same page as you, Mike.

After having gone the full spectrum of different periods in my rose gardening career when my roses were primarily either all: old garden/antique roses, hybrid rugosas, or miniatures, I have settled in on modern roses. Hybrid Teas, grandifloras, floribundas, minifloras and a few miniatures predominate with just three Austins, a clmber, Lady Ashe, and one bourbon, Madame Isaac Periere. These give more blooms and fragrance for the buck....almost 6 months of flower production a year, than any others. Who could ask for more!

If its not a fragrant rose I don't want it. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to grow roses that have lots of exquisite, fragrant blooms. So spray and winterize I must.

Best wishes for success!

Jim, thank you...Really appreciate it. So far they look good. This has been a crazy season...It's been especially warm to exceptionally cold..Too many extremes already and it's not even the coldest time of the year yet. I have had huge melts and huge hard freezes...The only rose that I did not cover has already lost one cane exposed...I am so happy I didn't take a risk this year.

Moses, exactly! I an just like you in this regards..You are thinking like me..Good luck too. I am determined to get good growth on healthy canes to start this spring. That's my goal.

Mike, you will.

I have learned that as a bush matures it can survive winter better, not saying an older bush should not be winterized.

Expect to see more and more good green growth higher up the cane survive until spring pruning on a PROTECTED rose bush every year that it gets older.

Of course, not all winters are equally severe. In fact I have had more winter kill than expected on protected roses after what I thought was a mild winter. There are many factors that govern winter survivability. That's why I try to give maximum winter protection every fall to the roses that need it.

Also, if growth higher up the bush experienced winter kill, which growth was going to be pruned away in spring regardless of its state, the fact it was killed is irrelevant.

Moses, righto....I hear you..Even if I had some die back come spring, I would prune anyways since that is the reason why I leave about 3 feet of cane and tie them off..It gives me more of chance of survival on a longer stem..

You know, I was thinking, it's a GREAT thing that I did what I did this winter..I realize that if I get a winter with very little ground, lots or rain then a hard freeze, my roses are screwed..If they are bare without any snow cover at all, then I get an arctic blast of below 0 temps, I loose all my canes if not the plant itself.Looks like that is the kind of winter I am about to get so far..No snow cover and who knows if I get below 0 soon...Not a good combo..(

I finished wrapping the canes of my new HT canes yesterday! I wrap the bottom of the canes with burlap--this helps to prevent them from snapping off at the base. I don't fill the burlap with anything--I even remove the leaves, as they usually rot in my overly wet yard. I also leave the canes long, though I do thin the overly vigorous top growth to reduce ice loading.

Zack, when you wrap them up like that, you just leave as is, nothing on top of the trunk area in the ground? Do you mound dirt or are they pretty much buried deeply?

Your system sounds fairly easy. If it works for you, I'd like to know. I almost did the burlap myself..Is there any way you can take a few pics and post them? I will work on my pics this weekend...

Thanks for adding your comments. They mean a lot too.

I bury the bud unions when I plant the roses. I clear away the leaves on the ground and wrap them up--I don't try to fill the burlap with anything. Typically I lose only one rose out of 200+ roses, so it works very well for me. Sometimes I don't lose any roses. I haven't lost more than one rose since I started my winter protection techniques. It helps to grow big healthy roses. I've not seen any advantage to growing own root roses when it comes to winter survival. I often wait until the roses start leafing out before I remove the burlap. It is quite common to get low temperatures and zero snow cover in central Connecticut. But, the worst weather is the sheets of ice that break the rose canes--fortunately it only happened one year.

Zack and others..I am ever so grateful that I covered my Roses!!! One that I did not cover has lost all it's canes already due to this stupid thaw and freeze weather I have been getting...I watch the uncovered ones closely and it upsets me that I did not cover all of them...Yesterday 4 degrees and below 0 windchill, today 17 and tomorrow 50, Thursday 59, Friday 55 then Saturday 29 again after all the snow has melted away....I have the very worst winters around here and I am so happy I went with my gut feeling....

Zach, I love your idea..Please. let us know how it turns out here for you by spring and if you can post a pic or two, I would appreciate that very much.

Why don't you tie off your canes like a Teepee and keep then sturdy so that they will not break?

I can't wait to start mine off with good canes for the first time since growing these plants..........

It is too much work to tie them up like a Teepee--wrapping them with burlap is enough to keep the canes from breaking.

Yes--it is the winter warmups that kill the canes. The warm weather results in bud breaks that won't survive the return to cold weather. Burlap shades the canes--sunlight is a factor in bud break. It also helps to keep the canes long--roses start budding out at the top. You want the buds at the bottom to stay dormant.

Some roses naturally have canes that change color with exposure to cold. There isn't anything wrong with them. The idea that roses that should handle -10F just fine already being brown and crunchy is just strange.

If you get a chance I would love to see pictures. It sounds like they will make it. Right now it's 50 degrees in CT and it makes me want to garden. As much as I love it I know that my plants might suffer. New England really needs to pick a season and stick to it!

I will take pics...Been sick for a few days...

I am beginning to think that for some of us growing 'roses' is an ALL season project..Not only do I have to protect them but I also have to watch out they don't desiccate in the winter too..If the snow should not fall and the bare ground is exposed to sub 0 temps or higher with whipping winds, the ground can go bone dry even in winter..So here I am watering all my roses deeply on the first given warm day above 40.....I know that many die just to a lack of moisture in the dead of winter...

Thanks for the encouragement..

It does fell like I want to garden out there too since my temp is a balmy 60 degrees right now! Back to the low 20's by day and single digits by Saturday night with a bare ground again..My bulbs are starting to pop up...lol

I am a lazy gardener. I mulch the roses in the gardens, and that's it. We got snow/rain all the time, I don't have to water them at all during winter months. :-) Just had a rain storm yesterday. The things you listed, made me tired just by reading them.......are you blood type A? :-)

I'm with you Summersrhythm! However, I'd love to see pics of Zak's method and it might be doable without too much work. I like the idea of protect against early bud break. We've had single digit temps, but today it's 60degs! Many of my roses still look fresh, so I don't know if I should still do anything or worry about their survival.

I wish I could just leave them alone...My neighbor lost all his roses to drought last winter! The earth was so dry, that by the time they started to grow, they dried right out..We are in the middle of the worst drought in years here and here we are wil, no snow at all once again...I must water all my perennials and shrubs if I am to get them all back come spring....

I use lawn edging materials and form a circle around the roses and fill them with soil. I don't remove them in the spring and leave them there. It isn't the most beautiful sight but I don't have to worry about doing all the work in the fall. It is perhaps unconventional but it works for me.

Hum, that's an excellent idea for next summer..I just might try that on a few..

Here it is February and the only thing that I have had to do is water my shrubs since this winter the ground looks so darn dry and we have yet to get a good snow cover to stick around or more than an inch of rain since last years drought...If they die of anything it will be from drought and not from the cold..I will take pics soon now that my Mother is much better and I have more time..Thanks again.

You've zeroed in on the biggest reason roses die over winter, dehydration. If you keep them watered they should do fine even if it's very cold. That's also why some people use burlap or wind breaks to wrap their climbers. It keeps those long canes from drying out too much from winter winds. Sounds like you're doing great and I can't wait to see pictures of them blooming this spring!

Mikerno

So cool, I found Karl Bapst rose articles on helpmefind. He was so helpful for me when the Roses gardeweb forum first started 10 years ago. http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/ezine.php?author=9511&tab=2

Karl made 8"newspaper collars for the roses and stuff them to keep the roses cold and protected from the freeze and thaws. I think Karl was zone 5. I am not sure if this works for zone 6. I have been using Karl's method. It's OK good for me so far. It keeps the roses cold.