With most Hybrid Tea Roses, to use them in a vase for the house, you can safely cut them when the sepals are completely down, and the petals begin to loosen.

DO NOT cut long stems from your newly-planted first-year roses. Allow the plants to grow, first.

When you cut your roses, DO re-cut the stems under water, to prevent air bubbles that will prevent them from taking up water. Condition them, by allowing them to "repose" with stems and foliage immersed in slightly warm water, preferably in a dimly-lighted area, before arranging in a vase.

You will find that Crimson Glory may not grow the very very long straight stems that you'll have with John F. Kennedy and Mister Lincoln, but it is wonderfully fragrant, and a very fine older rose.

Jeri

brkieffner,
Where in zone 5 Indiana do you live? I'm in NW Indiana, 20 miles south of Valparaiso.

Years ago I cut flowers for my church each Saturday for Sunday's services. at the time I had mostly hybrid teas. I simply cut long stems with flowers one half to 2/3 open. I never removed all the blooms from a bush at one time. I took a few and by doing so, new stems and flowers were always present on each bush. I was able to supply several hundred blooms each Sunday all summer long. If the yard looked stripped of flowers on Saturday, by Monday I had more blooms opening. Seems the more I cut the more flowers I had and by staggering the cuts, I always had more flowers coming along.
I did have 500 roses at the time so that gave me lots of flowers. Had to fertilize a lot to supply the food for for the flowers.

Do note Jeri's point about allowing young roses, or those damaged by winter, to keep their stems and leaves. Growth energy does not come from the soil, rather it is manufactured by leaves in sunlight. Stemless rose flowers can be floated in bowls.

In your climate, the most important thing is to protect the graft (bulge where the canes diverge) from freezing. It should be buried several inches below grade. The next most important thing is that hybrid teas need continuous protection from blackspot fungus.

Slender HT buds, those with fewer petals, may be cut at an earlier stage than fat ones, but not before the sepals split.

To karl_bapst,

I am not actually sure which part of zone 5 I am in. I'm located directly in Indianapolis on the west side by 38th street. I like the idea of floating roses in water, seems like a nice little trick. I think I'll have a total of 4 HTs total. Will this give me enough for a vase full? I don't need an enormous bouquet or anything, just enough to scent a room. And I will leave the HTs alone this year, I'll be planting them next Friday. Will they be ready next year or should I give them more time?

You're pretty close in latitude to me, brkieffner. Follow Interstate 74 straight east to I-72 and I'm in Decatur, IL. I leave as much plant material on the rose as possible during its first year of growth because our biggest conerns here are blackspot and winter survival. Like Jeri said, don't cut long stems on your babies!

A first year rose looks drastically different in size and stem girth than a 2nd or 3rd year rose. Usually my 1st year roses have beautiful blooms, but they are dangling from weak & thin stems on an immature plant and they won't stand up in a vase anyway. I either float the bloom in a bowl, or fill a wine bottle to the very top & stick a bloom with a short stem in it.

Humidity affects the way a rose's scent is carried in the air, and certain roses (like Mr. Lincoln) are more heavily perfumed than others. I've noticed that with the windows shut and the air conditioner running, there's a lot less humidity in the house and a lot less rose perfume wafting about. However, if the windows are open and the humidity indoors is up, 2 or 3 roses can make the kitchen, dining room, and living room smell heavenly.

I'm zone 5a, you're zone 5b. On average your season begins about one week before mine and lasts about one week longer.