Tips for December

Remember, these tips and tricks are current for zone 5 and need to be adjusted one week later for each 100 miles south of the southern tip of Lake Michigan that you live, and one week earlier for each 100 miles north.

    If a rose is healthy and not stressed when it's put to bed for the winter, and then protected properly it will survive until the spring and come back healthy.

     Winter care varies with the different climates so local gardeners advice is invaluable. However there are some general guidelines to follow. The further south you live from Zone 5 the less you need to worry about winter protection. Zone six usually can make it by just covering the bud unions with a collar and and filling it with soil or other cover. Boxes or cones can be used if you have a lot of tender roses.

Zone 7 may be able to get by with a hill of soil over the bud union. Zones 8 and up wonder why we have to do anything.

     Rose bushes die or die back over the winter from cold drying winds, changes in freezing and thawing and from cold temperatures to the bud union. To protect the bud union mound up soil or a mulch to about one foot high after the first hard frost. Make sure they are watered well. A lack of water will kill as many roses as will the cold and if we have little snow fall we will have little water. Depending on the number of Roses you have, in zones 4 and colder the safest way is to do the "Minnesota Tip". That's digging a trench next to the bush, cutting the roots on the opposite side with a shovel and tipping it over into the trench and burying it.

     A number of rose folks in the colder climes have been planting their roses with the bud unions 6 inches deep. Then, the addition of 8 inches of cover over the base for the winter protects them well.

     Zone 5 needs to wait until the ground freezes hard. You can use a collar of newspaper, 8" wide plastic, screen or tar paper around the base of your bush to hold the material you are using in place to protect the bud union. DON'T prune your roses back, wait until spring. Keep this thought; "Nature works hard all summer storing food in canes so they can overwinter and survive till spring. Am I going to cut it off and throw it away? I think not!"

• You can cut them back to 3 feet or so and tie them together so they don't whip in the wind.
• Cover the bud union with 10 to 12 inches of compost, soil, shredded leaves, wood shavings, pine needles or mulch.

Use that collar to hold the material in place. If you use rose cones, cut the top out of it and throw the top away. Let the canes stick out of the top. Put the cone right over your rose collar full of protection. That's to protect the bud union, the cone is to protect the canes and keep the ground at an even temp to prevent freezing and thawing. Spray Wilt-Pruf or other anti-desiccate on the canes to help prevent them from drying out.

     The recommended method for wintering climbers over in the winter in zone 5, "if you want to protect the canes and have nice long ones in the spring", is to dig a grave next to the bush, cut the roots on one side out about 10" from the base, tilt the whole thing over in the grave and bury it under a foot of soil. You can also lay the long canes on the ground, stake them down, and cover them with at least a foot of whatever you used on the bases of your bushes. Get it all ready and wait until the ground freezes before you cover it to avoid mice and such which will make a winter meal of your canes if you cover them while it's still warm and before the mice have their winter homes all set.

     If you don't care about dieback and the length of the canes next spring, then just cover the base of the bush with a foot or more of soil, mulch, shredded leaves or what have you. It will protect the important part and your bush should send up good strong growth in the spring. It all depends on where you want to start next year and how cold and snowy it gets this winter.

     I go to the extreme with roses in beds that will take to building boxes over them. I use 1 & 1/2" extruded styrofoam panels 2'wide by 8' long for sidewalls. 1x2s are used as stakes inside and out to hold them upright. A bed 4' wide by 75' long will be covered with a box 2' high, 4' wide and 75' long. Every 2 feet a 1x2-4'long will be placed to support the cover which is also a 4x8 sheet of the same styrofoam. I notch for the 1x2s so the covers are flush with the sides. The covers are held down with twine stretched across the tops from side to side and tied to the supporting stakes. My 2 foot wide beds are covered the same way. I then fill the boxes to the top with shredded oak leaves. The sides are built in November, but the leaves and covers are not put on until the ground freezes. A series of 2 inch holes are cut in the covers about 2 feet apart to allow water and snow melt to enter and prevent the bushes from drying out. I've used this method for 8 years now with good success. Storage of the styrofoam is a problem during the summer, which accounts for the 2nd story on my garage. The leaves are left on the ground in the spring and used for mulch. By the end of May they have decomposed down to 4 inches deep.

     Another method is to build a 2 foot high fence around a bed with chicken wire and then fill it up with shredded oak leaves to the top. This will also work but those bushes under the boxes have less dieback. Do your pruning in the spring. Then you can cut away the dieback. By not pruning severely in the fall you will have more and longer green canes in the spring. Remember, you can always cut it off. Once it's cut, it's gone. It works for me.

My winters will sometimes get to brief periods of 20 to 30 below. Sometimes lots of snowcover, other times none at all. You have to be ready for the worst and hope for the best.

     After reading all of this, remember, you'll reap the rewards of your labor in the spring based on the work you put into your garden in the fall. Those with Old Garden Roses which are generally hardy will probably not have to do anything. Some other roses are also winter hardy. Usually a person finds out when a bush comes up in the spring following a hard winter with no winter protection. Using the hit and miss method it's possible to have a rose garden which requires no winter protection. You just replace those that die. If I only had 10 bushes, I'd not worry. 100, 200, or more if lost can be quite expensive.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays!
-Rosenut

    I have pamphlets and handouts available on rose care, pruning, planting, disease control, composting, lawn care, and other horticultural subjects. If you would like information on any of the above please send a self addressed stamped envelope to:

-Rosenut