The roses will prepare themselves unless you are trying to grow something that is out of your zone or frost sensitive. I am not sure it is necessary to protect canes that you will be cutting off in feb anyway. After some freeze they should go dormant.

petals, in our zone, we really don't have to do much. I've learned to keep spraying fungicide until the first frost, otherwise a few warmish days can make black spot go berserk. Once we have a hard frost, I usually 'top' my roses. That means I just cut down any long canes. I do this to keep any really long canes from blowing around in winter storms and perhaps breaking off, and to neaten up the yard for winter.

Also you can use a lime sulphur dormant spray any time the roses are dormant. This kills fungus spores and will help prevent bs. It can also help to remove any remaining leaves from the previous year.

You may find that you have one or two roses that are sensitive to cold. The one I have is Don Juan. It seems to suffer some cane damage each year. I'm replacing the one I have because I think it's virused and it's not doing well. But for the most part, we don't need to do any winter protection and in fact, burying canes in our zone can cause problems with mold and canker.

Thanks. I thought I didn't need to cover since we have such mild winters, thankfully. Buford what kind of spray do you get? What name is on the bottle? I tried to find some last winter and had a hard time deciding if I bought the right stuff so never used it. Its ORTHO Volck Oil Spray for dormant season. I see it says it's an insect killer but no mention of blackspot. So I probably need to get a different one. Judy