{"id":2274,"date":"2017-11-20T09:04:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2274"},"modified":"2017-11-20T09:04:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:04:04","slug":"roses-in-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/roses-in-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Roses in Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leave<\/a>
Leave some hips for the birds, but cut back over-long stems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I grew up in western New York State, where winters were long, snowy and frigid.\u00a0 But even under those conditions, gardeners loved their roses and did their best to safeguard them against winter\u2019s worst.\u00a0 My father, who was a romantic and a rose lover, went through an impressive annual winter rose preparation ritual that required careful pruning, bags and bags of cocoa bean mulch and enough burlap to swath the entire city of Buffalo.<\/p>\n

Of course, his roses were mid- twentieth century hybrid teas, those divas of the garden that demanded tribute, adoration and most of all, personal services from gardeners.\u00a0 The roses were aided and abetted by \u201cauthorities\u201d and merchandisers who regularly promoted rose care regimes that seemed designed to daunt all but the most slavish devotees.\u00a0 Some articles of the era made rose pruning sound so complicated that mastering the necessary skills would take a five-year apprenticeship at the Royal Botanic Gardens.\u00a0 Rose feeding schemes seemed more complicated than planning and executing a year of daily meals for a family of four.<\/p>\n

Is it any wonder that so many of today\u2019s gardeners are totally intimidated by the idea of growing roses?<\/p>\n

If you want roses to survive whatever winter weather hits your area, the first thing to remember is to buy the right roses.\u00a0 If you can, choose \u201cown root\u201d varieties, rather than grafted types.\u00a0 In my father\u2019s day, almost all commercially available roses were grafted, with top growth from a beautiful, but relatively weak-rooted variety grafted to the rootstock of a hardier one.\u00a0 Grafting makes for strong growers, but it also means that if the top growth is killed by cold or other conditions, the plant will either die all together or sprout new growth from the roots.\u00a0 This is how some people who plant white hybrid teas, like the classic \u2018John F. Kennedy\u2019, end up with red \u2018Dr. Huey\u2019 roses the year after a bad winter.\u00a0 \u2018Dr. Huey\u2019 is one of the most widely used rootstocks for grafted roses.<\/p>\n

Own-root roses may also suffer total winter die-back, but if new growth sprouts the following spring, it will be true to variety.<\/p>\n

How do you know if you have a grafted rose?\u00a0 Look at the lower third of the main stem; if you see a noticeable swelling, it is most likely the result of the grafting process.\u00a0 These days, many rose merchandisers print the information on plant tags or literature.<\/p>\n

When you are buying new roses, make sure that they are reliably winter hardy in your USDA plant hardiness zone.\u00a0 Zone hardiness information is almost always available on plant tags.\u00a0 Websites can help as well.\u00a0 To find your area\u2019s zone, go to http:\/\/planthardiness.ars.usda.gov\/phzmweb\/interactivemap.aspx<\/a> and click on your state.\u00a0 Helpmefind.com\/roses is an especially good source for rose-specific hardiness information and searchable by the varietal name.<\/p>\n

Mulch is good for all roses at any time.\u00a0 Winter mulch, whether you use pine straw, shredded bark or buckwheat hulls, is an excellent insulator.\u00a0 The goal of winter mulch is to prevent heaves and other mayhem caused by the wide winter temperature fluctuations that many of us experience, so for best results, apply it after the ground has frozen.\u00a0 However, if you are like many gardeners who mulch once a year in the spring, don\u2019t fret.\u00a0 Lightening will not strike you or your roses if you neglect winter mulching.<\/p>\n

Pruning roses in late fall is another good idea.\u00a0 The aim is always to prevent damage caused by wind, ice and snow.\u00a0 This means a reduction in the overall length of the stems or canes, with special attention to long stems that are likely to whip around in high winds.\u00a0 Generally, cut back established roses by one third, with overgrown specimens or overeager stems receiving a two thirds chop.\u00a0 Much nonsense has been spouted about pruning to an outward- facing bud and much time has been wasted by those who worry too much about that.\u00a0 In practice, simply eyeball the one third or two thirds cutting line and apply your clippers or loppers.\u00a0 The rose will be fine.\u00a0 While you are at it, nip off any dead or damaged stems or canes.\u00a0 The only exceptions to the pruning rule are brand new roses, which probably don\u2019t need any pruning, and situations where you want to preserve rose hips as winter food for the birds.\u00a0 If you like the hips, trim back only the extra-long canes.<\/p>\n

If life would be irrevocably altered for you if you didn\u2019t burlap your roses, go right ahead.\u00a0 It can\u2019t really hurt them and might help extremely tender varieties.\u00a0 If you live in non-mountainous areas in the southern three quarters of the continental United States and grow either tough, grafted roses or own-root roses, burlapping is unnecessary.\u00a0 Not applying burlap also means that you don\u2019t have to take it off and store it in the spring.\u00a0 My father had a corner of the garage dedicated to summer storage of the antique lengths of burlap that had snuggled his roses through decades of winters.\u00a0 It worked for him, but if the choice is to forgo burlap or forgo growing roses all together; choose the roses.<\/p>\n

Winter rose care can be as simple or as complicated as you make it.\u00a0 Whatever you do, the roses are going to be outside on their own for the season.\u00a0 The majority will survive, and the bushes that don\u2019t should probably be replaced with tougher varieties.\u00a0 I think stress-free rose admiration is much better fertilizer than slavish devotion.<\/p>\n

\"For<\/a>
For better blooms next year, prune rose canes now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up in western New York State, where winters were long, snowy and frigid.\u00a0 But even under those conditions, gardeners loved their roses and did their best to safeguard them against winter\u2019s worst.\u00a0 My father, who was a romantic and a rose lover, went through an impressive annual winter rose preparation ritual that required … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[267,792,1765,1764,1102,973,11,501],"class_list":["post-2274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-fall-gardening","tag-garden-clean-up","tag-grafted-roses","tag-own-root-roses","tag-rose-care","tag-rose-hips","tag-roses","tag-winter-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}