I would have preferred to plant in the early spring. Do you have a bed prepared? It really is late to plant them and have them harden off for the winter. You will need to mulch them but do not cover them completely. When I lived in Arkansas I used leaves and pine straw. I would leave most of the bush uncovered. I would put down 4-5 inches of mulch around the bushes. The straw works really well. You can use hay also.

i do have a bed ready, and we had several yards of high-quality mulch delivered yesterday afternoon. (guess what i'm doing tonight?!!!!) the mini roses are small, but there are so many, i'm not sure i could find pots for all of them and keep them alive until the spring.

i should probably note that my husband also brought home 24 peace lilies, 24 african violets, 24 mums and 24 gerbera daisies. that's a lot of plants! most of those are indoors only in my area, so i thought i'd put outside what i knew could go - the roses.

thank you so much for your response!

: D

i'm going to mulch them tonight; i really hope they make it!

thanks,
abbie

I made the mistake of planting 30 mini bushes last year in a new bed in September thinking they would establish okay before winter set in.
Boy was I wrong.
Winter was hard on them and the big Easter Freeze we had here in April did them in and I ended up replacing most of them this past Spring.
The lesson is that I will not plant any roses in my garden beds after summer is over. If I had to take delivery of roses after summer, I would keep/put them in pots and overwinter them in my unheated garage where I can monitor them and water when they get dry.
I will use snow when possible to supply the moisture to the potted overwintering plant.
If nothing else, it should give these new roses a good head start the following Spring when it comes planting time.
John