I use something to block the wind from the north and if possible from the West. Anything that blocks the wind. I use burlap set up between stakes.

Then when it's cold I use something to keep them cold. Last year in the fall, I used 15 bags of garden gold. This year I collected 20 stupid people bags. A few different kinds. It wasn't enough. I could have used a few more in the compost pile. I wait until it's cold to use any material in the beginning of winter and keep the roses cold till the end.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/ezine.php?publicationID=687&js=0

Karl Bapst has winter protection guidelines on help me find roses. Every region is going to have different materials for protection. It's not keeping the roses warm, it is keeping the roses cold and blocking the drying wind that's important.

What are stupid people bags?? :)

My friend gets bags and bags of leaves that people put in the leaf recycling drop off spot. She puts those all around and over the roses (over her whole rose bed), then she puts styrofoam (about 4" thick) blocks around them and on top of them. That works here in zone 3.

Carol

There are so many feelings about winter protection. It's become a difficult question to answer. I read a lot on the far north forum and it's amazing what humans devised as a means to garden in difficult regions. If I were going to really zone push I'd do it Carols way. Grow the rose in a pot and over winter in the garage. Most of my roses are zone5 or lower hardy and there's too many to even consider protecting. Planting deep has worked as well as anything for me. Floribundas pretty much die to the ground but come back quickly to bloom again. All of my shrubs are different from each other some are tip hardy some die to the ground.

Wish I could help and wish you luck on rose survival.

There are lots of roses that should be very hardy in your zone 6. Give us the names of the roses you're interested in and we can probably tell you how hardy they are...or not.

I grow roses both in the ground and in pots in SE Michigan zone 6 and, depending on the severity of the winter, they do very well. I exhibit too so I have many hybrid teas and miniatures as well as floribundas, shrubs, climbers and OGRs. If you pick the ones that do well in cold climates you should have no problem wintering them over.

I used to do a great deal more winter protecting than I do now. Anything in my garden beds gets no winter protection other than what leaves blow in and whatever snow falls. Some years that's great other years they take a pretty hard hit. But for the most part they all survive and come back. The potted ones do need to be protected in zone 6. If you have a garage with enough room for all the roses you get that's great. You can put them in there for the winter remembering to water them at least once a month through out the entire winter until you can get them back outside. If, like me, you have no garage you have to provide some kind of protection for them. I move all my pots up against the south wall of my house. That's usually the warmest part of the yard. I wrap the lot in burlap and pack them with leaves.

I have about 35 potted roses now and this process is very labor intensive so be prepared! It takes about 20-25 bags of leaves to do this. This seems to work very well and I only took big losses on the potted ones the last couple of years when we had polar winters. But then I took losses in the ground those years too. If you can get them all in the ground that really is the best protection and easiest to handle. The roses also do prefer to be in the ground anyway.

Like I said, getting the right roses is the key. Please tell us what you're looking at.

The roses I'm thinking of are all listed to be hardy to zone 6. I just get paranoid because sometimes we get those crazy cold winter that are more like a zone 5.

my rose list is

honorine de brabant

souvenir de la malmaison

souvenir de st. Annes

boule be neige

new dawn

contesse de rocquigney

princess de nassau

aimee vinert

marie pavie

reine de violette

thanks for your help everyone!

Attached garages are really the only thing that works around here because they get heat from the house and are dry. Anything else runs into trouble with the temperature swings and the accompanying temporary swamp. So the magic substance is going to be something that offers protection when the temperature is cold enough to be a problem, but disappears when the temperature is in the low 40's or above. Snow does this reasonably well, but usual protection fails the warm part. Even in the coldest winters, we get January thaws where it can be above freezing for almost a week. The warmth is often accompanied by rain, not to mention melting snow. Under the conditions, keeping anything outside frozen and dry just doesn't happen.

As for the list, some are OK, some aren't, some will be OK grafted, dogs own-root, and most I don't know. If the idea is to grow relatively hardy, repeat blooming OGRs, they do exist.

I only have two on your list, Honorine de Brabant and Reine des Violettes. I have had them both for many years. They spent the first 5 years in pots and wintered very well in my winter pot ghetto. They're in the ground now so they don't receive any protection and both of them survived even the two polar winters pretty well. I'd say you should be fine with them.

Mad gallica, if you don't mind my asking, which ones do you think won't be ok? Is it the noisettes, Aimee vibert and princess de Nassau? I'm on the fence princess de Nassau. Comets de rocquigney is a wild card. There is so little info out there about it. I have a super warm protected place for her. Please let me know of any more repeat ogrs. This list is not written in stone. Thank you all for your help.

I haven't winter protect this or rather last year but usually what I do is buy those lawn edger and connect them in a circle and place it around the rose. Then I fill it with soil to create a mound. That is pretty much it. I buy the black ones and if I am too lazy I leave all year round...lol.

You are north of Hartford, basically near Bradley? Years ago, I went to a Yankee District winter convention around there. Lots of good speakers.

Most repeat blooming, hardy OGRs get a lot more disease in this area than works in a no-spray garden. I assume you aren't interested in spraying. If you are willing to spray, a lot more roses will work, and you will get results more in line with the midwesterners. Otherwise, no leaves leads to a wimpy plant that grows backwards.

Of your list, the only two I've grown are New Dawn and Souvenir de la Malmaison. New Dawn should be fine. Souvenir de la Malmaison is going to need the best care you can give it to do anything. I kept it in a pot, and even as a grafted plant it didn't want to thrive. Years ago, I knew somebody in Michigan who insisted on trying to grow it. After killing three own-root plants, he finally got a grafted one to live through the winter. It will blackspot here. Just too much tea to deal with. I'd expect Souvenir de St. Anne's to be exactly the same, though it does have a reputation as being slightly more vigorous.

Regarding noisettes, like the bourbons, the hardier ones tend to have disease problems. I've had Nastarana for years. I usually grows a cane, puts out a decent spray, an. d that's it until next year. Blush Noisette is supposedly a decent plant if you spray. I think the two you are listing have too much tea for here, but I'd have to double check.

Stanwell Perpetual won't get very large, but is a reliable repeated. Jacques Cartier is a good rose, but there seem to be several different versions, or something in commerce. Mine originally came from Canada back in the dark ages. I'll see if I can come up with some more. Generally, if repeat bloom is a requirement, modern roses do better. I can strongly recommend Fairy Tales, and the good Explorers are great roses. Then there are the hardier hybrid musks. I live in a lime pocket, so struggle with anything with too much multiflora in its background, so don't have a lot of first hand knowledge of those or polyanthas.

I live near Hartford. I plan on using organic spray. Blush noisettes is one that I read so much mixed info on as far as zone hardiness. It looks like people grow it in zone 5 or 6. I have a really warm spot for these roses. Sun all day and god ciculation.