I pay very little attention to the zone requirements as posted on websites. I live in zone 6 and have been told that several roses I grow cannot tolerate the winters here. However, after 5 winters roses such as St. Patrick, Marilym Monroe, Color Magic, etcc...have manged to grow just fine and survive the winters without a whit of winter protection from me. I do have a couple of large trees near my front beds that drop their leaves and they happen to accumulate around the bases of my roses in those beds. The roses have done just fine so I just leave them alone and that saves me a lot of work and aggravation.
My winter survival rate is pretty darned good. With the exception of two years ago when we had The Big Easter Freeze (TBEF). That year I lost 35 mini's and about 15 HT/FL roses. March was exceptionally warm and all the bushes had broken dormancy and had good growth on them. The bitter cold 10 degree weather was brutal for four complete days and the damage was done.
Other than that year my winter hardiness has been outstanding. Last year I only lost one bush and that was a "STrike It Rich" that was a first year bush that hadn't grown well all year so that was no surprise.
I took a walk around a couple of days ago and I found that at most I might have lost 2 or three bushes tops.
That's not bad for 250 roses with no protection!!
John

HMF's hardiness ratings sometimes strike me as rather conservative. I have several roses that other sources rated as in my zone, but HMF put them 1/2 or a whole number higher (less hardy). So far I have not lost a rose, although after the BIG EASTER FREEZE jon mentioned, I had to prune a number of my roses back to a few inches from the ground. They have recovered fine--and several of them are roses HMF said weren't quite hardy enough for my zone.

Like jon, I depend on my neighbor's oak trees to scatter some minimal protection around my yard. Other than that, the roses are on their own for the winter.

No guarantees, but if you really want a rose and the zone listed just misses your zone, you might experiment and see how it works out. It may be just fine.

Kate

A lot of it depends on your own, personal, response to risk. If you look at it from the perspective of trying out a lot of roses, and always having space for new ones, zone pushing is fine. If you look at it from the perspective of hating to lose plants, liking to watch the roses get bigger and better every year, and not wondering what you are going to find in the spring, then a surprising amount of the published information is risky.

Something I've noticed about new rose growers in my part of the world, is that a lot of them are coming to roses after being successful perennial gardeners. However, as perennial gardeners, they were extremely conservative in what they grew. Most plants were commonly listed to a zone hardier than where they were, and all had reputations as easy keepers. But when they move over to roses, they automatically get into the high-maintenance, marginally hardy types, and it becomes a totally different ball game from what they are used to. There are roses that fit the same characteristics as their perennials, but that isn't what they were encouraged to grow. So they end their little experiment with the idea that roses are extremely difficult.

Gary, it's a lot of trial and error. It really helps to ask rose growers in your area which roses are their success stories, but sometimes you just go ahead and try it. I have lost more than a few roses over the years but OTOH I have succeeded with quite a few that one would not think would winter over in zone 4 - esp. since I no longer mulch, mound or cover my roses. They're planted deeply and many are own root. Spring pruning looks like a massacre on most of the modern roses but I'm no longer shocked by that and I know if I treat them right they rebound. I must say that I add more old garden roses all the time for their hardiness and ease of care. That said, I have a few roses in permanent pots because I know from my research that there is no way they would survive outdoors in my winters and I really wanted to grow them.
So, bottom line, you read, you ask and then if you're smitten with a rose you take a leap of faith and try it.

(BTW, if you click on My Page after my name, you'll be able to read the list of roses I am currently growing here.)

I've learned to pretty much ignore zone listings. Almost every rose that I've tried has been hardy here without protection. I plant my roses very deep (at least 4 inches) and that does a lot to help them survive. They get pruned pretty much to the ground and have to start over every year, but they get nice and big by the end of summer. You have to be careful with climbing roses though as you'll want something that is cane hardy so it doesn't have to start over in the spring.