Winterizing roses is an essential
maintenance practice, undertaken to ensure healthy and constant
growth of the plant so that it is strong and ready for spring.
How much winter protection you
need to give your roses depends on your climate and the
particular rose. Winterizing roses should be done in late fall
after a hard frost, for most folks in the north, but for us here
in the Pacific Northwest, we may not have true "hard" freezing
weather until mid winter. So, for me, I usually will prune my
bushes back around Halloween. By then we are starting to get
some frosty nights and since we have lots of rain, the plants
are done blooming anyway.
The standard advice from most
rose experts is to prune your plant back by a third of it's
size. Well, I am guilty of pruning mine back nearly to the
ground and they have come back even stronger! As a general rule
with pruning hybrid tea roses, any cane thinner than a pencil
should be removed. DO remove the oldest stems that are no longer
productive.
As a group, hybrid tea roses
are more tender and are most vulnerable to winter cold and need
the most preparation. The timing and extent of protective
measures for more fragile hybrid tea roses depends on how cold
your winters are.
It is very important here with
our mild rainy weather, to remove all foliage from the ground as
roses are very susceptible to fungus. Diseased leaves left on
the ground will allow spores to bounce back up onto the plant
when the rain hits them and keep infecting the plant.
If you live in an area with
relatively mild winters, you may simply mound the mulch over the
plant crown 6 to 12 inches. For sudden freezing nights some
protection may be needed. I have heard of everything from bed
sheets to bubble wrap! Now, the bubble wrap sounds like a great
idea! You have the insulating air pockets of the wrap and it's
light enough in weight than it won't break your plants branches,
like bedding may do if it becomes weighted down by a heavy dew
or gets rained on.
If you don't cut back the
leaves and remove the foliage, when the freezing weather hits
the frost will travel down to the roots and most likely, your
plant will die. Growers understand the importance of summer
watering their roses and having rose beds with good drainage,
however, the plants can also be stressed if they enter the cold
weather season too dry.
Many shrub roses and species
roses may be hardy enough to endure your winters without
protection. Check with your local Extension office for specific
information. In areas where winters are unstable, with
freeze/thaw cycles, roses can be weakened or even killed off.
This is because the natural anti desiccant in the plant blocks
in moisture, which protects the plant from the damage caused by
freezing, thawing or refreezing in winters.
How your rose fares in winter
depends on a number of factors--the weather, the plant's
location in the garden and, of course, the type of rose it is.
The thing to do is monitor the weather reports and have your
mulch and cover materials (see notes in a previous paragraph)
ready to go should a cold snap be predicted.
