Any new growth will be lost. The oldest, hardest part of the scion may survive, depending on the winter. Damage to that age wood might happen at 10 or 12 degrees, depending on the variety. Don't cover too early because there is a risk of stem canker. Shovel snow over the soil mound when it is available.

There are two or three threads currently on the board about protecting roses in pots.

Good luck and come back in the spring.

Inside where? The house or a garage? I don't suggest bringing roses inside the house. They are not house plants and will struggle and most likely die before spring. An unheated garage where they can go dormant and remain that way all winter is the best place for potted roses. Just remember to water them a little bit every month. They will need some water to survive.

I can't say about the budded ones but those may be better off inside the garage than in the ground too.

Thank you so much Seil and Michael.

These days the temperature is between -3 to 12 ðc and some of my roses still have a little growth. In January it could fall to -13ðc .

Do I apply protections now or when the bushes are completely dormant and fallen leaves?

I wouldn't go by the state of the roses but rather by the forecast temperature, say -10 C. Don't cover too soon because it encourages fungal infection in mild weather.

By my standards it sounds like you are practically tropical. If you get snow cover at all, I'd let that be the winter protection, and skip the smother love.

mad_gallica, I started to say something similar, but if the OP has grafts less than a year old and exposed to the air, I think they should be protected if temperatures of 10 F or lower impend. I do not protect here, but all my grafts are set below grade. I did have damage down to the ground on some roses last winter with temperatures around zero.

Thank you to all for the information. So I will postpone applying protection to scions until the temperature falls to about -8ðc.

There is the issue that we know very little about this climate - the amount of moisture available, normal temperature cycles, or other details. However, I am not convinced that winter protection as usually practiced provides any benefit. Wind protection can be useful in a windy site, but protection from cold honestly seems to require a heat source. Piling on mounds of stuff does nothing until the stuff gets wet. Then it causes rot. So its main purpose is to make the rose grower feel better.

Winter protection is far from a cut and dried practice where following a list of guidelines leads to success.

I always respect what mad_gallica says, but a soil mound over the crown does have a heat source--the ground heat conducted upward by the soil which keeps the topsoil in the 20s F when the air temperature may be zero F.

Again, the reason I would protect in this case is that the OP very likely has grafts exposed to the air and not even fully hardened by age. It does seem that in the OP's climate, every winter will not be cold enough to threaten severe damage. I would replant roses in spring so that the grafts are barely below grade. Then there would be no need for protection.

Michael, sit down with some tables, and calculate that heat. I did it a few years ago, and the results are microscopic. Then you can work on the R value of 12" or so of soil. The physics of the matter just make no sense. This is why the rationalization of winter protection turned from keeping them warm to keeping them frozen.

I don't know enough about the science behind any of this to say which of you might be right. I do know that psychologically I feel better when I put down some kind of protection, lol!

I feel bad reading this post because I did not winterize my roses at all and I live in Canada, the Great white North. We had our first snowfall yesterday here in Toronto.

Well, I believe that if a rose can't survive our winter than they are not worth keeping.

I agree with Seil for not bringing roses indoor as they are not houseplants. Well the exception is mini roses.