PS: I raise horses and have plenty of feed sacks. Would it help to cover as many roses as I can with feed sacks?

Yellow roses are the most winter tender. Saint Patrick is an annual around Boston unless you stick it in a zone 7 microclimate or carefully protect it as I do. Henry Fonda died in plus 10 degree weather--he can't take the cold.

If it were me I would try to stuff as many in the greenhouse overnight as possible. I probably would tuck the rest up next to the house and throw feed sacks over them. I've heard watering them can help too. Good luck!

Alameda,

Slipping your feed sacks over them will be very helpful: plastic, burlap, woven nylon, and woven polyurethane, any kind. Fasten the bottoms around the pot with anything that works: rope, twine, bungees.... You could gather the sack and clip each with a couple spring clothespins. Make sure they don't slip off in the wind. You tighten up the bottoms of the sacks around the pot to eliminate air infiltration. If you have enough sacks, use two for each rose. Don't Line up the seams as you place one sack inside the other. That way there is an insulating additional space.

You could use large heavy trash bags alternately. They can rip easily on the thorns. What you do is put one on. Then seal the rips/holes with duct tape. You may want to slip a second one over the first one. It will go on lickity split.

Put those bags on any time it goes below 35° F, and off when higher than the same. Don't go by the news report of current temps, go by your outside thermometer. Still, listen to broadcast weather reports, and act in advance. Watch for wind chills. Wait them out before removing the sacks. Use your judgment on when to remove the protection.

No damage was done here last year when it hit 19° F. during a late spring frost protected as recommended above.

Moses

I keep large heavy cardboard boxes stored flat year round in the garage to use for this, along with old bedspreads, blankets & construction tarps. Boxes are the quickest to fold up & plunk upside down over plants. Assortment of metal poles stuck in the ground to support the blankets & tarps with clips, like a tent above the branches, can cover a large swath of plants in one go. Clothesline run between two posts or trees make an impromptu structure to support tarps like a kid's tent. Edges can be held down with earth staples & or bungees & clips. These methods easy to erect & remove without catching on thorns or damaging plants. Pop-up canopies, the kind that fold up with the legs already attached, do double duty to shield plants when covered over with tarps. (Keep these on hand for sun/heat protection for myself working the rainy or Summer garden & to use as temporary shade for young plants.)

I'd concentrate first on roses that are more sensitive to cold - such as teas & some of the noisettes, or younger ones in active growth.

Roses here do fine with temps much lower, down to 5F this month, over many years, without damaging their canes, but I do grow roses hardy to zone 7. The only trouble comes in freeze-thaw bouts Spring & Autumn when temps can drop from 75 to 10 in a few hours. That's when I use the boxes & tents for temporary protection of roses in growth & bloom mode.

Your feedsacks could be stapled together to cover a large area in one swoop. Comes down to what you've got on hand & can rig up easily & quickly. Good luck! Sue

I'm a little south in Ft Bend Co.I put buckets over some smaller ones.Then I used blankets on others.The wind is brutal,its just been ripping the protection off.No more room indoors for even the potted ones.Feedsacks would work as long as they didn't fly off.

Alameda,

The most tender tea rose and the most hardy Canadian Explorer Series rose are equally vulnerable and equally damaged when it dips to freezing. We're not talking about cane/bush hardiness, we're talking about the equally frost tender new growth on them presently. New growth on a prima donna rose bush or a Nanook of the North rose bush freezes and dies just the same.

All your roses need the best possible freezing protection you can provide them.

Moses

Came in to warm up and put on more layers of clothes - putting on feed sacks and bringing in my barn what I can. Thanks for all the suggestions - its to do this for 2 nights. Misery! I will never complain about heat again in summer! Last winter we had no freezes at all!

Judith

Lots of great ideas here though! I love the box idea . I'm a box hoarder ... I like to use them under my mulch to keep weeds down . So I'm glad to see another use for them ! Though I just left my roses to fend for themselves this cold snap . In tn they should be ok but in Texas I imagine they aren't used to this abuse !

I honestly think the roses will be OK at 15 degrees. Yes, the tender new growth will freeze and go limp but doesn’t that just get pruned off in the spring anyway? Much of Texas has already had temperatures in the teens in early January, and looking around the roses seem fine. I agree those in pots should be moved to a sheltered location if possible.

Lilyfinch,

I’m a box hoarder too! I save all my boxes from Amazon, then use them in flowerbeds to keep weeks out (with mulch on top). Now that they have gone to biodegradable tape, my job just got easier :)

I remember there was a freeze last Jan in Houston that hurt the citrus trees.That is what I'm really worried abut.Also,the local Home Depot was sold out of frost blankets.But I just use old blankets.

If you e got hay bales, set the potted ones up against a building and wall them in. As Moses said, if the canes are gonna go, they are gonna go, but I'd be worried about the potted ones. Or if you have empty livestock tanks stick them in those. Good luck, crazy weather!!

Just got inside after 8pm....it was 23. I let my barn help off today, roads not good, so did everything myself - horses all OK, got chickens in pet taxis in heated greenhouse and insulated room in barn, yanked as many roses as I could inside - some pots frozen where they sat. Have one climber in a big pot that is Heavenly Dawn, a gorgeous apricot that Jackson Perkins offered for a short time - roots grown in ground so didn't want to yank it up but got cushions from deck chairs and totally surrounded the bottom with thick layers, then tied canes together and put feed sacks over thickly and tied. Got all the roses I cant replace in barn, the ones too frozen and heavy I had already mulched. Its to get to 13 tonite. I guess what will live, will live. I did my best. My hat is off to all you who live and garden up north. No way I could do that! Hoping for the best but at least I got all my rare roses I cant replace inside. While I was inside warming up this afternoon, got a notice from Heirloom that Spiced Coffee is now available! So.....what does one do on a frigid winter day while taking a break from protecting roses from the cold? Order more! Along with Spiced Coffee, I got Ann Harkness. How's that for optimism? Thanks ya'll for all the great suggestions! One more night of this then its supposed to warm up and rain. Warm up is the key word!!

Judith

Judith I know how you feel. We hit 25F a week ago. Its gonna be around27F tomorrow night and freeze again after that. Then go back up again. Im tired of dragging stuff into the greenhouse, covering pipes and plants lol. In 2009 it hit the mid teens several nights in a row and a tree limb fell on our greenhouse. That was a total disaster lol.

Our chickens handle the freezing temps a lot better than they handle summer heat when it gets up around 100F. I had a few hens die from heat even in the shade with plenty of water. Our rabbits love the cold weather so at least I dont have to worry about them.

I also use cardboard to cover around the plants to keep weeds down. You can also usually get free boxes at Sam's Club. I use the ones the veggies or chicken nuggets come in, for nest boxes for our hens or for broody mommas with chicks. The bunnies like them too.

Totally anectdotal, but it seems to me that wind greatly exascerbates the damage caused by cold. I don't think its wind-chill in the sense that the wind is blowing away warm air close to the rose's surface like it does to our warm-blooded bodies, but rather the drying effect it has. Cold air holds little moisture and I think the wind is, in effect, freeze-drying the canes.

If you have small potted plants you want to protect, you can place them in large iceboxes and shut the lid. Just make sure the drain plug is shut. I used to use several large ice boxes for my pepper and tomato seedlings when I lived in WY and it was still cold in the spring. I could leave them in there, open the lid in the day time and water them (open the drain plug), then close the drain plug and lid at night. Worked really great.

Wondering how your roses did in the freeze...hoping all is well! Sue