No matter where you live, during certain months of the year, you will have to give your roses a different type of care. If you live in moderate climates where freezing isn't much of a concern, you will still use less fertilizer and prune heavily around Valentine's Day to send your plants into a forced dormancy during your 'winter' months or whichever time of the year your roses rest.

Winterizing actually starts way back when you are considering which varieties to add to your garden. There is information available that will give you guidance regarding what roses might be tender in your area. Local Rosarians are your best source of on-site information regarding tender or winter hardy varieties.

It is important when planting grafted roses that in very cold climates, the bud union (the fist-shaped knob on the base of the main stem) is placed 1-3 inches below ground level.

Keep your roses as healthy as possible during the growing season. Anticipate disease and pests and take action when evidence of a problem presents itself. If you have a plant that always develops mildew or is a Blackspot magnet, it is helpful to use the appropriate sprays before disease is present.

Water your roses on a schedule that will give them at least 1 inch of moisture weekly. Under some conditions of severe drought, you may have to increase the moisture levels. Using 2-3 inches of mulch will keep weeds at bay and slow down the moisture loss. It also insulates the soil so that there aren't wide fluctuations of temperature. Use natural materials that are readily available in your area. Stone isn't recommended as this has a tendency to give your roses a 'hot foot' during the hottest part of the summer growing season.

It is important to note when discussing pruning that we remember that most climbers do not need the type of pruning Hybrid Teas and Floribundas require. Most climbers bloom only on old or mature wood, so your winterizing program should include measures to keep as much of the old wood as healthy as possible during the dormant period.

To keep old canes as healthy as possible, it is important that you protect them from injury from whipping wind. If your canes are trained on a trellis, fence or other support, it is important to secure them so they don't cause injury to surrounding canes. If they are pliable enough and your winter weather is severe, you might consider laying them on the ground and covering them with soil taken from another part of the garden. Don't use the soil from the rose bed for this since this will uncover shallow feeder roots and cause your plant to loose moisture. Bring soil from another area and mound it over the canes several inches deep. This can then be covered with either mulch or evergreen branches. The object is to insulate the soil so that there isn't a wide fluctuation in temperatures where the soil will have periods of freeze and thaw.

If the canes are too stiff to take down and lay on the ground, consider wrapping them in burlap either on the support or bundle them together using a soft cord and, again, wrap with burlap. Horticultural burlap can be obtained at your local garden center or farm and home store. It is much cheaper than burlap found in fabric stores.

In very cold climates, the 'Minnesota Tip' is standard practice for Zone 5 and above for tender varieties. This process involves digging a trench next to the plant and laying the entire plant into the trench and again covering with soil.

Another method that has been used to winterize roses is the mounding technique. Again, soil is brought from another part of the garden and mounded around the base of the plant. To increase the height of the soil mound, you can use hardware fabric around the base of the plant and then fill with soil. Some other collars are made from tar paper or heavy waterproof paper. Unfortunately, this process is very labor intensive, but it does protect and insulate the canes.

If your canes are very long, you will want to bundle them and secure with soft sturdy ties (strips of pantyhose is perfect). Allowing the canes to thrash about in the wind will cause breakage, injury to the canes and the rocking of the plant will loosen it in the soil and cause meltng snow to puddle in this area causing damage to the canes and bud union. Again, if they are very long canes (not climbers), you might want to cut them back to around 4 feet.

There are Styrofoam cones that can also be used. Cones should be vented so that the temperature inside the cone doesn't 'toast' your canes. There are many versions of this process and include various Styrofoam sheets, and bean baskets.

Miniature Roses are hardy in most areas and need only the protection of leaves raked into the bed in colder areas. A low wire fence is needed to enclose the area and leaves placed around the plants. Oak leaves are the best for this purpose as their waxy coating prevents them from breaking down during the winter.

Do not apply your winterizing too soon. Always wait until after a severe frost before covering your roses. If applied too soon, rodents will take up residence and feed on your plants during the long winter months.

In colder climates, pruning is left for the springtime when you can see if there are dead, diseased, or damaged areas of the canes that need to be trimmed off. Roses can also be pruned if they are growing outside the bounds that you have set for them.

To find out more information about how to winterize your roses, contact a rosarian in your area. National organizations, like the American Rose Society, the Canadian Rose Society, and the Royal National Rose Society can refer you to someone in your area.

Look it up in a book. Here are a couple of suggestions: Robert Osborne, owner of Corn Hill Nursery, in Canada, offers a lot of information about roses that are very winter hardy and a thorough explanation of what happens to a plant when temperatures plummet in his book, Hardy Roses: An Organic Guide to Growing Frost- and Disease-Resistant Varieties. Peter Schneider, who grows hundreds of roses in chilly Ohio, presents a lot of practical advice for specfic roses as well as more general information about winter protection in Peter Schneider on Roses. Roses for the North covers a variety of roses and their performance and care at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. So do John Mattock, Sean McCann, Fred Witchell, and Peter Wood in The Complete Book of Roses which, although hard-to-come-by, can be found through your national rose society's Lending Library Program.

Keep in mind, that you do not need to buy a book in order to be able to read it. Each one of the organizations mentioned above has a Lending Library Program for its members. You'll find books that are currently in print, as well as many out-of-print or hard-to-find rose books. These Lending Library Programs are invaluable and we highly recommend them!