I used to live in zone 5 with long, dark, and nasty winters and grew Heirloom. Nearly all my 25-ish roses, mostly HT, Floribundas, and Grandifloras did ok with winter protections. The HTs were on the east side of the house which was fairly protected from the brutal winter winds, but the temps regularly stayed below 0, sometimes way below 0. Heirloom did as well as the other HTs and I like this rose so much I ordered two for my new house even though I'm moving away from HTs and towards other roses.

It has grown ok for me here. Purchased as a body bag 2 or 3 years ago. I think it benefits from having some mulch thrown over the crown in the winter - mine is in the open, but I heavily mulch the banana trees that are close by. Great fragrance!

Thank you for answering Nippstress. I guess I'll consider it an experiment, and if it works, that's great and if not, I probably will stick with shrubs and floribundas. I don't have the time or the desire to try to overwinter pots in my garage. I'll try the extra mounding soil over the top.

Thank you Dingo and Sonic. It's nice to know that it has survived for some. Sonic, what did you do for winter protection?

I tried a variety of things because I was new to roses and read too many rose books! :) The first winter I surrounded them with some sort of support (little circular sections of wire fence I think) and stuffed those with raked up leaves until only a few inches showed. That worked ok. Second time I think I piled them over heavily with straw. That worked ok too, third year I think I threw some extra mulch on them (you see the lazy trend here...right?) And that worked as well, but by the fourth year I was like Meh, and never got them covered. They still did ok because they stayed mostly under snow that year which has insulative value too.

Also, because I was new and followed instructions I had read in books (not always right depending on the location) I did not bury the graft below the soil when I planted them. Oops, live and learn, but over the years as I piled mulches, straw, and stuff (I had a farm there) the soil levels built up enough that the graft was about even with the soil.

A few of the more finicky HTs eventually expired, but the Heirlooms are still going strong despite not getting any cover for the last 3 or 4 years. And yep, they smell wonderful.

Do any of you have any problems with Heirloom defoliating during humid days? I'm no-spray so maybe that's what the problem is.

Most of my roses get blackspot and I think Heirloom is probably in the worse half in my yard, so it's not surprising that you get this effect in a warmer zone. I don't spray either and it seems to have survived even in my cold zone just fine, so if you can tolerate the blackspot I think it would be fine at least as far as survival.

Cynthia

It's surviving, just looks weird with blooms and no leaves! I've read this before about Heirloom but I thought that my heat would agree with her. I actually think it does but those humid days surely don't.

Same for me as Nippstress, once the hot humid days started there the plants would look fairly ratty, but I did not spray because they were under planted with edible herbs and I don't like chemicals. At my new to me house I've started from scratch and plotted things out a little differently with plans to use the organic spray I picked up, if need be. I want to see how various roses respond here first.