How to prepare rose bushes for winter?

Question

My rose bushes are very tall, maybe 5 feet or even taller. I am not a garden person and those bushes were there when I bought this house...so just wanted to know what to do because they are really beautiful when they are blooming.


Thanks all you garden people ;]]

Answer 1

It really depends on if they roses are hardy. Just to be safe, let's assume they aren't. You'll need to prune the roses first. Don't worry about cutting too much off - I have one I prune every year and every summer it grows up to about 6 feet tall again. Using a good, sharp pair of shears, cut each cane (or branch) down to about 2 feet from the ground. You want to cut right after you see a bud - a small red bump on the branch. That bud will sprout into a cane next spring. Then cover what's left of the plant. You can use straw, but I've had better luck with the styrofoam rose cones you can buy at home improvement stores. They're a little pricey ($5-7 each) but they'll last for many years. You may need to put a small rock or brick on top of the cone to hold it down in heavier winds. Once the last danger of frost is over next spring, uncover the roses. You will probably already have some fresh growth. Give it a good dose of fertilizer and enjoy your blooms. I know it seems like you're cutting back a lot of the plant, but it will be better than having the whole thing die.

If you're able to contact the previous owners of the home through your realtor, you might see if they can tell you if the roses are hardy or not.

Good luck!

Answer 2

If you haven't done anything to those bushes since you moved in (like pruning them), then you probably have full, thick bushes. This results in less nutrients going to each flower, so they are not as big and colorful as they could be.

If you want to keep the big bushiness of the plant, don't do anything as far as pruning right now. You'll want the energy in the leaves and rose hips to be sucked back down into the roots to give the plant energy to bloom in spring. But, if you want to maximize the blooms (less blooms, but bigger and better), you should prune the bush in about December.

When you prune a rose bush for winter, cut it down to about 18-inch canes. If it's a hybrid (most roses these days are), you want to cut all of the branches that are coming out of the roots (emerging from the soil, not sprouting off the main trunk). Of the branches that are sprouting off the main trunk, pick about a half dozen that are sprouting in a circle (one at the 12 o'clock position, one at 2 o'clock, one at 4'oclock, etc.) and remove all other branches coming off the main trunk. Also, remove all branches that are growing in toward the heart of the plant.

If you're in a cold winter area, your rose bush is probably hardy enough to survive a winter there (it survived this long, didn't it?). The part of the rose bush that could be damaged (killed) by the extreme cold is the root system. So, you want to make sure the roots are covered well (some of the roots near the surface may get killed by the cold).

First, give it one last good soak. A soaker hose is great. Otherwise, set the end of a hose next to it and let it trickle out for a couple hours. Then insulate the roots. You can pile up 6 inches to a foot of dirt around the base of the bush, about two feet wide, for extra insulation. You can also use lots of mulch, assuming it won't get blown or washed away by winter storms.

Then, pretty much forget about it until next spring.

Answer 3

You might want to find out what kind of rose it is, because there are some climbers and floribundas that bloom on old wood--and if you prune them severely, they might not bloom next year.