MN is in Zone 4, so wait until late November if you are in Zone 5. Timing is tough as one wants to tip the roses just prior to the ground freezing solid and uncovering them just as the ground thaws.
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Some climbers get huge and one ends up doing a modified tip, wrapping the canes with fleece and doing the best one can. Sometimes after jumping on the canes I have been known to use cardboard, filled bags of plastic bags, and even gas cans.
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Here is a link that might be useful: MINNESOTA TIP METHOD

Er-digo-pues-plastic bags filled with LEAVES. See the first photo in the background.

Duh!

Foghorn at work.
IAGL

Winter protection begins when you plant by placing the bud union (crown/graft point) 5-6 inches below the soil surface. An own root should be planted an inch or two deeper than it was in the pot.
Your Don Juan will probably die no matter what you do with it. There are other reds that are hardy. Don Juan is very winter tender.
My attempts to overwinter several Don Juans over the years ultimately end in failure. A few survived the first winter only to be weak and dying the second

I agree with Karl. You will have to go to great lengths to protect Don Juan, and then it still may die or not be very vigorous next year. Sombreuil will likely be the same.

It is difficult because so many roses are labled "climbers" in the nurseries or department stores. But they are only climbers in the south. Like Karl said, there are many hardy climbers for the north that you won't have to bury or anything--you can just leave them unprotected and they will be fine. Ask around.

If you do not tip you will have a bush. If you tip you will have a climber. You have the roses, you might as well try it for the first year and see how much of a pain it is. The purpose of tipping is to keep the canes frozen so I place the bags of leaves over the tundra.

Sombreuil is growing 4-5' above our roof. It is only supposed to grow to the top of the pergola on top of our deck. I assume you may have Col. White on which I use the gas can to hold down the cardboard & stuff. You can tell if you have Col. White or not if you find a small dog or two or a chicken trapped amongst its' thorns.

Hep me! Hep me!

Foghorn

I travel down to racine from Milwaukee, a 30 minute drive minimum, to get roses other than purple or pink, because it seems that's all the local nurseries sell around here. I don't want purple or pink roses. Only to get home with my white and red rose bushes to find they aren't hardy here. WTF?

Veilchen said:

"It is difficult because so many roses are labled "climbers" in the nurseries or department stores. But they are only climbers in the south. Like Karl said, there are many hardy climbers for the north that you won't have to bury or anything--you can just leave them unprotected and they will be fine. Ask around."

'Asking around' is very open ended. Everyone has an opinion, and those opinions differ. When I go to the nursery, and a reputable nursery at that, they tell me they wouldn't sell these roses if they weren't winter hardy here - particularly referring to the Don Juan - because AFTER reading here, my intention was to return it to the nursery. They assured me and reassured me that with proper winter protection, DJ will be fine. Yes, I'm more inclined to believe those on this forum, though during the spring or summer it's difficult to get a response as everyone is outside enjoying the warmer weather.

"the purpose of tipping is to keep the canes frozen..."

If they are supposed to be frozen, why cover them at all?

I don't have any room to bury the canes unless I wrap them around the crown itself, in which case the canes will probably crack. I have a shrub to the left, and perennials to the right and front of my rose bushes. No where else to go with the canes.

Gas cans? Help me out here. Don't know if I should take that literally and don't mean to sound like a complete moron, but I truly don't understand what gas cans have to do with winter covering rose bushes.

In the few instances I buried Don Juan canes in an attempt to overwinter them, they developed canker spots and had to be cut back below the canker. Whether buried, covered with mulch, or with leaves heaped over them, the result was always the same.

In my opinion, nurseries, reputible or not, have one thing in mind, selling plants. They make no money telling you a plant will die as it's not winter hardy.

"They assured me and reassured me that with proper winter protection, DJ will be fine."
Therein lays their disclaimer. You have received a number of suggestions regarding proper winter protection. Which one is proper according to the nursery? Bet they don't even know.

"If they are supposed to be frozen, why cover them at all?"
In the ground, temperatures reach a low point and stay there. The air temp can get below zero while the frozen soil may stay just below freezing, 32 degrees. Wind chill is not suppose to be a factor in determining how much cold a plant can withstand, but the drying effect if winter wind pulls moisture from exposed canes. Without moisture, a cane will die, even if it's not frozen. Burying prevents moisture loss. Exposed canes can also split from the frozen water in them. This is a common entry for canker and a big reason for cane loss.
Another loss factor when burying is rodents using the rose canes as a winter food supply. During the years I tried overwintering tree roses by burying them, I lost many due to the bark being completely eaten off during the winter. I finally decided that all the winterizing work was senseless when hardy climbers were available that required little or no winterizing.
Much of this has to be done after the soil freezes. I'm not a big fan of working outside when it's cold.

Kim, I hear your frustration. Winterizing climbers is very tricky. I have lost many Hybrid Tea climbers in the past before I learned to plant only those in my Zone 5 Illinois garden who proved hardy for other gardeners. Quadra, a red climber, and New Dawn, a white climber, do well in our zones. I also grow Aloha, an apricot-pink Kordes, and I never have to provide any winter protection at all, and Aloha rarely has any cane dieback at all.

Anyway, what I plan to do for some of the first-year climbers and shrubs is to wrap them in burlap. I'll do this when the temperatures have consistently stayed below 25 degrees. I'll also have mounded around the plants with wood mulch. The burlap will stay in place until Spring.

You can buy the burlap @ Menards; I just bought it in rolls for about $7.00 yesterday. Good luck!
-terry

We are on the border of zones 5 & 6 here. One of the top rose growers in our area uses a unique method for his climbers that always works for him. He lays the climbers down on the ground and covers them with concrete blankets. These are the blankets construction crews use to protect newly poured concrete from bad weather. They are heavy and well insulated and do a great job of protecting the climbers over the winter. In the spring he pulls the blankets off, stands the climbers back up and ties them to their supports and they are ready to go.

You hit the nail on the head when you said you could hear my frustration.

This past summer I landscaped the back of my yard and it's amazing how many plants are sold here that aren't hardy to our zone. So they purchase them in bulk, I'm assuming, at a really low rate, to sell them to us knowing they won't last through the next season...nice way to cheat the public and make a profit at our expense right?

Getting back to the roses...here's the kicker...I told my (copy cat) neighbor one day that I was DYING to go out and get a true red climbing rose bush. Before I even went out and purchased it, I looked over in her yard three days after our discussion and guess what, she has a true red climbing rose bush!!! Arrrgghhhh! So now, DJ will probably die and I will be left looking at her true red climber. Go figure, right?

Thank you for the suggestions and feedback. Perhaps I will try Quadra and New Dawn. Believe me, I won't be asking the advice of the local nurseries! LOL

I'm going to try my luck with burying the crowns and wrapping the canes in burlap. If that doesn't work, then it's new roses next year. Perhaps I'll tell my neighbor I don't like red anymore. LOL

Terry, I was just reading the other post on this forum, "colder zones..." and I was wondering if you knew how the Rambling Red compares to Quadra for zone 5 (Milwaukee)?

I really, really want a true red climber.

kimcoco, it took me several years of educating myself before I finally realized the people at the nursery don't know what they're talking about re: roses. And I don't just mean the big box stores that stock the same roses they sell in the south with employees who don't know a juniper from a spruce. My local mom&pop type nurseries sell somewhat hardier roses like Austins and rugosas, but continue to stock loads of hybrid teas year after year. I think the majority of the information they get comes from their vendors (the wholesalers who are selling them the roses). They just repeat what they are told. So a rose that may need "proper winter protection" in, say, New Jersey, needs a whole lot more to survive a Wisconsin winter.

Quadra is a good, hardy red climber. I don't know Rambling Red but people speak highly of it on this forum. Another is Chianti, a wine-red climber from DA that I grow, but it only blooms once in the spring.

Kim,
I have had good luck with Dublin Bay here in zone 5b. I guess my caveat to that would be that it is protected from the west winds, but other than that it gets the full brunt of winter and has held up well.

Phil,

That is a great idea with the concrete blankets! I learned something new today, and here I thought I was the font of all wisdom (LOL!!!!)

Oh boy! I can still use my gas can to hold down the blankets.

Foghorn

foghorn,
If it gets too cold, I hear you can burn the gas cans for almost instant warmtn!

Hey Kim, I forgot to mention that I'm going to cut down my Miscanthus perennial grass after it dries out this fall and use to insulate the rose canes before I wrap them in burlap. If you don't have any perennial grasses, you could use straw, and I saw the long grasses at Farm & Fleet last night back in the duck blind section.

I don't grow any red climbers, so I don't have any first-hand knowledge about their hardiness..just what I've gleaned about others' postings. I did grow New Dawn for several years until it contracted RRD last summer.

The two New Dawns grew over a very large homemade trellis and stretched over French doors on the southern side of a walkout basement. They were about 10 years old, and during that time, I never winter protected them nor had to spray for BS. They had a great spring flush but just a very small flush again the fall, so if you are looking for continual bloomers, these would not be a good choice. The spring flush was magnificent, though.

If you do choose New Dawn, you will need a very sound structure to grow it on; it is not a wimpy climber in my experience. It did get tall enough to reach the second story bedroom on a regular basis.

Quadra and Rambling Red are both nice climbers for the north. Here in MN zone 4a they both have tip damage every year and most years some cane die back that varies from year to year.

RR is a bit truer red than Quadra, but you would not notice that unless they are grown close together. Qudra has a bit fuller bloom. My favorite is whichever one is blooming best at the moment.

RR is easier to train to a support because its canes are not as stiff as those on Quadra. They both have pretty good disease resistance and both are prone to Canker in the spring.

If I had to get rid of one, it would be a coin toss. Maybe you can find room for both.

Regards,

Charles