I do not grow any mini roses here and am interested in hearing how hardy they are from others too. Years ago I knew someone that had planted a row of different minis along a walkway, but I never paid attention to how they did. I've heard many of them are hardy, but I guess it depends on the type?

Looking at it from another perspective though, you won't be able to keep it indoors forever, so you might as well try it outside anyways. And I would seperate the 3 plants apart, even if you plant them in a group, you would want to give them more space than they have in the pot.

Most of these gift roses are own root. That's a good thing for cold climates. Even if it dies back to the soil in winterr it should grow back again from the roots. Do remeber to plant the root ball about 4 inches below the surface.

As for when to take it out, I would wait until your night time temperatures are steadily above freezing. Then you will have to harden the plant off by taking it out to dappled shade in the daytime and back in at night for a few days. Then slowly move it out into more and more sun. Once it's in full sun all day you can start leaving it out all night.

seil, if the root ball is 4 inches below the surface, many of the leaves will buried. Maybe half the plant will be. Is that what you mean?

hi linn ... long time.. no time ... as you recall .. our zones are equivalent ...

first issue is hardening off ... keeping in mind.. we can have FREEZE thru about 5/1 .. during a cold spring ... no leafed out rose will appreciate that ...nor a hard frost .... though an in the ground plant might take a bit of frost.. warmer zone peeps usually dont see the difference ... so it will need a long hardening off process while you turn it from a greenhouse to outdoor plant ...

issue B .... understand that a rose is a rose is a rose ... flower and leaf size isnt a defining factor ... you would treat it as any other ... so dont look for special rules for such..

issue III .... lol ... is genetics ... when i was collecting.. there is some magic line between z5 and 6 ... probably defined by winter ... where many roses simply are not z5 plants ... and what i found when i used to collect.. was that many of the exotic colors... are such plants ... its one of the reasons.. they catch our z5 eye .. and make us want them .. and why florists sell so many of them ...

i THINK it has to do with how far they have to be crossed out from the old standards [red and white and war of the roses and all that] ... they are just not as vigorous .. and why i called many of them foo foo ...

and for some reason.. in my experience... when you get past yellow.. into the salmons .. and blue??? ... and lilac colors... they are just plain old hard to deal with.. in z5 ... well that was my experience ...

good luck ... give it a go ... and be rather surprised if you win this challenge ...

ken

ps: too bad you didnt force dormancy on the plant [if that is possible] ... you MIGHT be best off ... to get it fully on a z5 cycle ... to continue to grow it in a pot.. perhaps up potting this spring.. and then as it goes into dormancy in fall .. planting it in the garden then ... and protecting it properly .. mulch and maybe a rose cone ...

While I was a university student (oh thirty years ago), I received a free pair of mini roses from a nursery. They were planted in a bed that was sunny at the time, but became increasingly shady and they persisted for at least twenty-five years.

I think it's safe to say they're like most other mini's. They're roses, just smaller. Treat them like roses, and not like newly born humans. I, in fact, prefer them to great gangly bushes.

Mini roses have some reputation for being hardy. I'd separate these plants out and pot them up individually, and grow them on until the roots fill in the pots. Then plant in the ground. It is just tricky to grow any rose indoors.

The last two years I've bought some marked down minis with multiple plants in the pots. Have potted them up individually and they are doing well. Mine stayed outside all winter. If these minis don't make it you could always try again when your weather is warmer. They've probably been greenhouse grown.

Hi Ken! Yes, I have not been on Houzz. In the winter I don’t come on the gardening forum. I’m in Home Improvement or Cooking. If I can’t garden, it’s time to re-caulk the bathtub and bake scones. Maybe not at the same time, LOL.

I don’t think I can force dormancy on it at this stage in the game.

I DO have a few roses already. 3 shrub roses and one very old hybrid tea which I keep because it was the last thing my mother gave me back in 1996. One of the shrub roses is a no-name floribunda which I bought because the flowers were salmon.

The new minis, if they make it, will go in the foreground of the same bed as a color echo to the salmon floribunda. It’s a bit of a microclimate: protected by the house from the worst wind. I have 2 beds that are closer to zone 6 and that is one. Plants in those sprouts earlier.

Apart from the color this variety seems very vigorous. I’m sure it was on the sale table because it was basically done blooming: except for one flower. This one is a little bigger and just seems a higher quality than the ones I’ve bought locally. The greenhouse/garden center where I bought it has some exceptional plants. It’s near where my daughter lives and I have been going there to buy dahlias and houseplants because what they have is so much better than what I can get around here.

I will separate and re-pot. I am no stranger to a slow hardening off process.

Linnea, my mother lives in zone 5 in the front range of Colorado and she grows mini roses. She also grew them in zone 5 Kansas in the past. So while I am sure that not all minis are suitable for your zone, there are many that are. Other than a bit of mulch, my mother does nothing special to winter protect her roses. When they get snow, it melts pretty quickly where she lives, so there is no long term snow coverage. Her climate often has fluctuating temperatures, so it is not uncommon to have several warm days followed by below freezing temperatures. Even in her colder zone, many of these minis will get to be bigger than you might expect.

Many of her minis came from Heirloom roses back when Heirloom still sold miniature roses. High Country Roses in Colorado lists four pages of miniature roses on their website. I am not positive, but I would expect all of these to do well in zone 5.

I was about to leap into this thread, also mentioning the potential hardiness of mini-roses (guess it could be the chinensis genes somewhere in the lineage). Despite looking tiny and delicate, they are as robust as their larger cousins so after a short hardening off period (a couple of weeks, say), they can go in the garden. Nonetheless, I have gaily spouted dubious 'advice' all over Gardenweb, frequently forgetting our mild maritime climate does not exist anywhere in the US (although the PNW comes close).

Yes Camps, that's our next demand as Brexit advances, a decent climate with variability for you Brits. It'd make you so much more sympathetic to the rest of us (lol) (hope I didn't cause any bleeding wounds with reference to the Brexit crisis).

But you're right, they're just small roses...but still roses none the less. Which is usually true of miniature anythings. People seem to think it's a whole different 'animal' and they're not.

Welcome back to GW Linnea! It's absolutely worth trying to plant this mini outside though like any rose in zone 5 that's not specifically bred for zone 5 and lower we take our chances and are pleasantly surprised that it survives. I love hearing Ken talk about the magic line between zone 5 and 6 that is so very frustratingly true in my experience - just a few degrees colder/windier in the winter seems to make a huge difference for roses. I'd add that snow cover can be another dividing line within zone 5, where some people have no difficulty with winter hardiness or surviving canes with snow cover that I simply can't overwinter with any amount of leaf, mulch or artificial protection without the corresponding snow cover.

Still, we can't pre-judge from any rose class or even breeder what will be hardy in our zone. I have shrubs that are supposed to survive zone 4 that won't overwinter for me, and yet Maman Cochet as a tea can be at least partially cane hardy some years. Even though Kordes is more likely to be hardy than many other breeders, there are some wimpy Kordes HTs that are hopeless in zone 5 like the scrawny mutt Blue Moon that I tried 7 times to overwinter in zone 5 only to have it finally limp through a few years then die when a smidgen of fertilizer hit it in spring.

In my experiments with minis, I have had better success with nursery and mail order minis that are intended to be garden plants than florist minis (including most of those sold in grocery stores) that are intended to be disposable. I could potentially root any florist rose sold in garden stores if they haven't used the growth retardants on the stems, but I'd be unlikely to have it survive in the yard. Seeing "florist rose" in the description on HMF equates to "extreme long shot in zone 5" in my experience. I have failed to overwinter most of the grocery store minis, even ones that are named and from a reasonably hardy breeder like Poulsen minis. On the other hand, nursery minis like Cupcake and Beauty Secret have been rock solid for me and often cane hardy. Mail order minis like any mail order roses are hit and miss, but I never know till I try.

Camps, please keep sharing your perspectives on rose growing and more general gardening any time!! I've missed your witty insights and personality since you drifted off to other gardening topics after adjusting what you'd grow on your allotment. We all know to adjust the advice we see here on GW based on our on region and microclimate, but nothing can replace the delightful people and interaction from our community here.

Cynthia

Make sure those mini roses are far away from the street salt.

Sigh - Brexit - what a fiasco.

Ah, it won't apply to you so much Lin, being as they are going in the garden, but I TWICE murdered 'Mr Bluebird' by sketchy watering over winter (ignoring it to the point of near dessication, then drowning the poor things). Winter wet does so much more damage than winter cold...at least when I am wielding the watering can