Rick- Very pretty picture of your roses in July :)

Wow, you really get ready for winter! I threw a little bark on my few hybrid teas and hope they're buried deep enough. Since we have cold winters too, I'm thinking of trying more of the old-fashioned roses, like gallicas and albas. They don't bloom all summer, but neither do the lilacs or peonies and I love seeing them each year.

Do you have a lot of heat in the summer? We have very cold winters and hot summers in the 90's much of July and August. Last year my few hybrid teas (they're in some afternoon shade) opened in the morning and lost their petals by that night or early the next day. The only one that did very well was Tamora and hopefully she makes it through this winter :)

I'm sure your roses will look beautiful next year. I hope you'll post some more pictures!

Gosh Rick, you almost make me feel guilty. What a lot of hard work. However, I can see from your photo of your roses in the summer, that it is worth it.
This is the most snow we ever had when I lived in Cornwall!

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And this is the same view in summer.

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Daisy

Daisy, what is that pink rose on the post of your second picture? It looks quite lovely.

le jardin of roses, that is one of David Austin roses, Mortimer Sackler.
I got it because, David Austin said that it was disease free.
It turned out to be completely free of any disease, even in Cornwall, which has a climate which seems to nurture every disease under the sun!
It is also virtually thornless.
It blooms all summer, and has a good perfume.
In fact a very good rose.
Daisy

Rick,
I do wish you luck, however the one time we covered a rose with straw the mice found it very cozy and girdled the rose. It came back but never amounted to much. We dug it up and gave up on roses until I became intrigued with the cane hardy Prairie Heritage roses. I do no protection except throwing the snow when I shovel the walk onto the most susceptible roses. We will have to see what happens this winter. It has been very mild and almost no snow then -26c this morning. I scraped up what snow I could and piled it on 'Stanwell Perpetual' which grows like a ground cover here but started going upward this last summer.
Roses in Canada. a challenge!
Leo

I put on a bucket of wood shavings on each one, which just about covered the 12 bands from 08 and 09 that went into the new garden in July. Most were between 10" and 15" tall, with Cinderella being about 2' X 18". After that I laid on 2' long "fans" cut from the Hemlocks at the edge of the woods, to keep the chips in place and add extra insulation without shutting down ventilation. And as of yesterday, everyone is under more than 10" of new snow.
This is more than I ever do (most of the ogrs make it with nothing) but since they were all babies I made the effort for their first winter in the ground (the 08's had spent last winter in their gallon pots under two feet of leaves in a ditch).

Daisy, thank you for letting me know it is Mortimer Sackler. I now have this rose on my wish list.

It is so nice to have people on this forum from other countries. It makes this forum all the richer.

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to you, Daisy. I hope your new garden turns out fab!!!

Juliet

Lavender Lass, yes we do get heat in the summers and humidity. I am originally from Southern British Columbia, so am quite familiar with Eastern Washington, where I suspect you live. The heat there is dry. Mid summer temperatures here hover in the mid 80's to low 90's, but with the humidity, usually 70% plus, it often seems much hotter.

I grew quite a few OGR's in B. C., mostly Teas and Noisettes. I've tried a few here as well, some once bloomers, Albas, Gallicas, but they have proven too tender for this climate with lows in January and February that reach -22 or -23 F. They don't die, but have enough winter kill that they don't flower.

So, I stick with Austins, hardy Canadian hybrids and quite a few of Griffith Buck's roses that die back, but recover and flower well every summer.

Leo, I've had great luck with straw for the past 5 or 6 years. I wait until the temperatures are below freezing before covering the roses. Usually late November or early December. No mice in my roses thus far.

We had our first big winter storm the day after I posted this thread. We have about 12 inches of snow on the ground now and the roses are all tucked in for the winter. I'm very hopeful that I'll have roses with more cane to start the growing season next year.

Cheers, Rick

Gee straw and hay are great rose lifesavers for us rose growers, it is what is hopefully going to keep my roses alive during the dry time we are having now. Great to see the excellent photos in this interesting post.