I have read that many gardeners in your zone like Quietness.

Are you planning to bring these pots in during the winter or hoping that using zone 4 roses will be enough?

Thanks you guys! Pippa your roses are gorgeous, I've definitely added them to the list.
Vapor - I'm really hoping to leave them outside over winter, otherwise I'll have to significantly limit the number of container plants as my garage is pretty small

My own root Iceberg has a lovely fragrance and is tougher than all get out, it bloomed from April to early November in my zone 4b garden. This picture is from last October and I got several more weeks of blooms before the worst of the cold hit. It survived stretches of several weeks of --30F with no snow or any protection at all and is beautifully healthy this summer.

Rugosa roses. Tough as nails, hardy to the bone, very fragrant, attractive foliage that is immune to blackspot (unless you get one of the hybrids with a lot of non-rugose genes), produce hips, cool-looking thorny stems that add winter interest to the landscape, and completely carefree. What other choice is there?

when i collected roses .. in my MI ... i expected a 25% loss every winter ... adn i was running 125 or more for years ...

two issues come to mind ...

get them dormant.. and keep them dormant ... when they go in and out of dormancy... they tend to die .... the best years.. were when there was total snow cover ... so the soil stayed frozen all winter .. they would die back to snow cover.. but always bounce back ... mid winter warm spells were death ...

which leads to pots.. and how you can deal with them in winter... a pot will thaw.. and growth might start at any time .. and then flip back to cold.. and dormancy.. and that isnt good ...

so i dont think you will accomplish much.. by moving to pots ... except a new hobby with dealing with pots in winter ...

please.. more posts .... the better .. no need to apologize ...

ken

Is there any way you could move them next to your house so they at least benefit from the retained heat and don't get too cold?

The best, for fragrance, hands down, is alba semi-plena (in fact, any of the albas). I also consider rosa spinossissimas to be hardy and sweet smelling - there are a number to choose from (but might be harder to source in the US)...but I love Falkland (for its grey, glaucous foliage and the pale yellow Dunwich Rose. I have not grown a straight setigera rose, only setigera hybrids such as Tolstoj...but I think the prairie rose has a lot of hardiness. I also grow rosa arvensis - and rosa helenae - both sweetly scented. Finally, although I do not love these overmuch, rosa rugosa is both hardy and fragrant...and comes in many varieties as well as the straight species.

Maybe I missed it - but is there some reason they cannot be planted in the ground alongside the driveway? That might be preferable if you can. Nothing says Merry Christmas like pots full of dead roses :)

Most Rugosa's are tough and extremely fragrant. Two of my favoriyes.

Hi, you might be interested in this thread posted in the Far North forum: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/1888497/the-horribly-detailed-rose-report#n=50

Camp, Spins are almost impossible to buy here in the States. It is so sad because they are adorable.

Someone recently posted about "Banshee" growing in Minnesota. Banshee: https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.516

If I were you I would call High Country Roses, located in Denver CO, which specializes in old roses. They could give you advice about their hardiest and most fragrant offerings. http://www.highcountryroses.com/

Is there any way you could move them next to your house so they at least benefit from the retained heat and don't get too cold?

==>>>

just to be clear ... in her zone 6 .. cold is not an issue ... its the going in and out of dormancy ...

and a south facing wall would be a nightmare ...with retained winter sun heat ...

whereas a north facing wall ... would be a great place to store pots.. because the wall would stay cold on warmish days.. helping the roots stay in dormancy ...

ken

Seconding the recommendation for High Country Roses, everything I have bought from them has been super hardy and Matt is great about answering questions.

Hi Ken. I saw that. I'm in zone 6 and we get to -7 at night multiple times a season with long stretches at single digits to zero daytime temps. Many of my zone 5 inground roses have died on north-facing walls. Yes, a north facing wall would work if it's next to a house, but there are many variables. I'm not even sure the OP is looking to move her pots from the drive.

I'm excited to look into rugosas more! ow that I think of it, I bought a body bag rose on impulse last year Robusta, it has gotten huge in a single year and blooming like crazy, apparently it's a rugosa! I hope I'd be able to find some of the more unique roses mentioned, it is super hard to get some things in the US though unfortunately. Ah I am so excited at everyone's suggestions, I'm going to spend my weekend googling these roses since it's going to be rainy all weekend anyway. Got tot get my rose fix somehow.

Dingo - lol very good point, very Christmas-y. Well I suppose they don't HAVE to be in containers, I just think it would look more cohesive/better if they were in big pots or whisky barrels as opposed to the ground. This is because the long garden I have is further down the beginning of the driveway, so I thought it might look weird to put them in the ground, as if the main garden shrunk except for a skinny line of roses lol. I COULD extend my garden but I don't want to add that much more space to maintain (plus my husband might lose his sanity if I keep expanding the gardens every season lol). I made some mock-ups of the area I'm talking about:

Current. (R is a rock fyi haha)

This is what I was planning. Pink circles being rose pots. I also considered adding in elevated raised beds strictly for veggies around the same area (but obviously: if people think it might look weird I'd like opinions):

Ken, that's a really good point to bring up, unfortunately our "north wall" is not even a wall, it's the garage doors so we couldn't put anything in front of it. Garage itself doesn't stay cold enough in winter...learned that the hard way. Although our east wall is completely shaded most of the day, so perhaps that could be my pretend north wall.

Jens Munk is a hardy, fragrant, own root rose.

FYI: Robusta has a lot of non-rugose genes it in = more prone to blackspot. You already have it so I guess you just have to see what happens, hopefully you won't struggle with that issue.

Honestly I suck at growing in pots so my personal preference would be to put them in the ground. Is this at the end of your drive away from the house? How far to schlep the hose? You could curve the end of your big bed into a bed along the drive, like 4 feet deep maybe. More room for flowers :). The landscape forum is super helpful for these kinds of questions! Have fun putting it all together!

If you get rugosas, you will not have to plant in pots to protect them - they are super-tough. Seriously. Zone 6 will not faze them in the least, that's laughable in terms of what they can take.

Some rugosas to consider: Frau Dagmar Hartopp (a personal favorite of mine), any of the Pavement series (Snow Owl, Schnekoppe, etc), Alba or Rubra or Scabrosa (these three get big), Hansa, to name a few.

mxk3 - great suggestions thank you. Thanks for the info about Robusta, it seems to be doing fine which is weird since we've had a crazy amount of rain and many of the roses have BS already.

dingo - The house would be at the bottom right of the photo. The garage sits under the house and leads right out the the grey strip that's the driveway.

Kali, I was reading about William Baffin this morning and thought of your dilemma. In the comments section the old owner of Azalea Shrub Farm mentions growing numerous plants in 3 gallon pots and overwintering them huddled together. Take a look. There's also a lighter pink sport. I also think Felix LeClerc and Victorian Memory might work as while they may not climb perhaps they'll make large bushes. I would honestly just try with a few and see how it goes. What have you really got to lose? If they do well try some others or more of the same! : )) If you read through some of the old posts from ASF (I don't know if the site is still available), he may have other suggestions. Do a search for cold hardy roses over at HMF.

The key to growing roses in pots in a cold climate is like Ken said. You want your roses to go dormant and STAY dormant. It's hovering around dormancy for a long while or going in and out of dormancy that is the problem. The old climate pattern was not so bad. But now with weird out of season freezes and warm spells, it's a real struggle. Try to somehow protect your roses so the temps stay as consistent as you can keep them. A little insulation helps keep them protected from the worst temp. swings if it doesn't go on for too long. Also protects against wind. My dad has had good luck with keeping them in a corner of his unheated garage.

pinkmountain - I think that's what happened to some of the container roses I had this previous winter. I had them in the garage and they must've broken dormancy without me noticing (I am not very observant) . I do have a garage I can put them in but the temperature if far too high in there to keep dormant, I might be able to bundle them up outside against the side of the house where it meets the back deck and makes a shady little cove.

Yes, that is what I do. I bundle them up in burlap stuffed with straw. My pots are already against the house so I just leave them where they are. The area of the garage my dad keeps his in is at the end, well away from the house. Protects from wind but burlap/straw or clear plastic will do the same thing.

I have Quietness in Maine. It's own root and has come back every year. I did mulch up the stem a bit, but don't cover it. The only damage it gets is from chunks of ice falling from the eaves.

I have Zephirine Drouhin in our Indianapolis home. It is a "climber" but really has longer canes that are manageable. It blooms amazingly in the spring and then again in the fall. Best of all, NO THORNS!!!

I ordered our roses from Chamblee's in Texas. I ordered thornless or nearly thornless. I have had them for more than 10 years now. They grow on the south side of our house, but are 10' away from the house. I have frames that I put around and fill with leaves in the winter. I remove the leaves and frames the end of February to keep them dormant thru March and part of April.

So is yours for black spot? I think we have a similar area for that as I'm in Southwest Ohio about 2 hours from you.

Knock on wood, I have not had black spot. I have had a few japanese beetles. But those are minimal also.

How'd you come out on this project? I'm curious as to what roses you went with. I'm in zone 5a WI, but don't grow in containers. I've been lucky not to loose any roses yet, but I do mound with chip mulch each winter. My roses are relatively young, but I can tell you that Golden Celebration, Munstead Wood, Jude the Obscure and Lady of Shalott have done pretty well here and have nice fragrances. Twilight Zone's fragrance is great, now it's just getting it to grow bigger! :)

Kali, I just saw this thread and hope you have good luck with your roses next June! I am in RI and have lost many roses over the years but have also had good luck with many too! As I am a summer resident I don’t have the luxury of tending my garden in the spring so the roses I have need to be carefree! I have lots of rugosas that grow wild as I am at the beach but have several rugosa hybrids. This one is Polar sun. Just keep in mind that they can grow quite large. I take hedge cutters to this every year! The smell is just amazing though.

Any of the Griffith Buck roses such as this carefree beauty will grow in the coldest winters!

The Meidiland roses are very hardy. I love the scarlet Meidiland; no scent, small blooms but a great , showy plant.

And if you want a good reliable rose with scent that needs very little care and reblooms try Rosarium Utersen. An unusual color with bunches of bloom, very showy.