I can't help you with this...since I move my roses...but I'm wondering why they're immovable? Have you tried moving them with a dolly?

Actually, the usual advice for places warmer than 6a is to move the containers to the north (shaded) side of the house. Then ignore them. If you don't freeze solid, and stay that way, any junk in contact with rose canes can cause canker because it holds moisture against the cane.

So plant the pansies and wave bye-bye.

LOL :)

rosecanadian,

They are in very heavy containers on a raised deck where I would have to get them down the stairs. It's too much trouble for only a few days of freezing a few times in the season.

Most of the times, the weather is warm enough for the roses.

mad_gallica,

So no pansies? If I plant nothing else in the containers would that be OK?

Cover with burlap and all of that for freeze day?

Nothing means NO THING!!!

Plant what you want in the containers. Then ignore the containers. It is going to be a rare event that you are going to get cold enough that any sort of covering, protecting, smothering or anything of that sort is going to do more good than harm. For most roses, the 'oh, I should do something' alarm goes off around zero. How often do you get colder than zero? Not zero centigrade, zero fahrenheit.

In order for winterizing to make any sense at all, you have to have winter.

I got it.

Our typical lowest is low to mid 20's Fahrenheit. We never get 0 F. We sometimes get 0 C or slightly below (right at freezing), and that's about 20 days a season, here and there, at the most. That's what Southerners call winter. :)

What should I do for these parameters to ensure the roses will be fine in containers on those days? Just let them be? That would be very nice.

And I can I definitely have my pansies? Because I love them! They do amazingly around here. When other places drown in total winter dreariness, the pansies brighten up the South in the most amazing colors. And when the bulbs pop out early spring - you get this! :)

I got itI

I love pansies too!! I plant them in wheelbarrows that I paint.

I love your purple and orange combination!!

I have very large pots in zone 7b and everything in a pot is hardy at least to zone 5 so I leave them be and completely ignore them all winter. We do get snow so they get some insulation from that but they all seem to be thriving.

This is just a baby Charles Darwin I've only had a couple of years.

I live right up the road from you in the N.E. part of the state (Cornelia). I have several roses in pots that stay right where they are all year long. When the temps are going to be below 28, I do a wrap with old blankets. One around the pot and one draped over the plants. The one over the plants are draped over 3 stakes that help to support the blanket and keeps the weight of the plant. I've been doing this since I moved here in 08 and have had great success with it.

Pippa,

Your Charles Darwin looks so healthy. When you say "large pots" what do you mean?

What is the diameter of this pot? It's hard to figure out from pictures. My pots always look much smaller in pictures than they are.

Rosenagellyn,

I can't even begin to imagine taking care of so many roses! But people must have a blast when all those blooms bring the reward. I read about someone on this forum who relocated 700 roses!

That was an OMG!

Interesting idea with the bags of leaves clustered around pots.

Last year, when I was worried about pansies freezing during one of those low temp nights, a nursery associate recommended covering plants with a special anti-freeze paper they sold.

Thank you, Ken! I need to follow you and dianela. Maybe even stalk you (LOL) - so I can finally learn a thing or two about what works in THIS area.

What roses do you grow? Or is there a thread I could visit where you mention them?

I bought Rosie the Riveter early this year at the recommendation of a Pikes associate who said this is the rose that does best for her.

Guess what? She is very prone to BS and I think she is the one who may have infected my Climbing Pinkie and Belinda's Dream a little, at the bottom.

Ken grows gorgeous roses, but I think he follows a strict spray regimen, or at least he did. I can't remember if you spray, SeverN. However, even with spraying some roses struggle so that's something to look at.

Vapor,

I've sprayed here and there with some copper fungicide (supposedly organic) - when desperation hits. But I can't say I followed a strict spraying program.

My Climbing Pinkie has really acted up with BS this summer; so today I went out there again to spray it. I realized what a PITA is to spray a climber that has grown a bit.

When I see roses BS-ing badly I am so tempted to snatch them out and just replace them as I clearly hate spraying. Indeed, it doesn't even always work.

Then again, it takes forever for them to become established and I hate to start from zero again.

Maybe Ken will be so kind to share his spraying regimen.

Ha! I mentioned on another post how ClP was doing well for me, but since we've had slightly cooler temps, she's starting up. Prevention is key. Still, she's robust and always has a few blooms and a glorious spring display for a very young rose so she's staying.

For me, ClP has only one flush in the spring, It doesn't produce a single other bloom outside that one brief time. I am hardly impressed considering it has been BS-ing much more than it has bloomed. I got it because I'd read it is so great for the South.

Again, maybe it has to do with the nearby high-canopy trees that only allow for full sun some parts of the day. Unfortunately, there are no spots in my yard where there is sun all day long.

All have limitations because this neighborhood was built in a forest in the 80's when they didn't level all trees to the ground for construction. Only what was necessary.

We have lots of beautiful old trees around but less than ideal conditions for growing roses.

Yes. I think we've touched on this before. Mine went backwards in a liw dappled light situation.

The top of that pot is about 24 inches and then it gets s bit wider part way down. I have others smaller than that one too and I leave them all out unprotected.

This one is maybe20 to 22 inches across.

This one about 22 inches

24 inches

Insanely beautiful!

I do spray for fungal disease's but VERY rarely use pesticides. I have lot's of bumble bee's, butterflies, dragon flies and humming birds. I don't want to mess things up in my yard. I spray, using Bayer's Disease and Fungicide every 2 weeks. Depending on the weather, I might miss by a couple of days but my garden can live with a little black spot by July. I just do my best to keep things under control.

You can find me on facebook. I belong to a few rose pages. Ken Wilkinson.

Thank you for the compliment Vapor. I find it easier to grow good roses up here in N.E. GA then in central and S.E. FL.

Ken,

I have been looking for the product you suggested but I don't seem to be able to find it. On amazon I find something from BioAdvanced (Disease Control) instead of Bayer's. I wonder if that is a copycat or something.

It would be nice to have at least one doable idea in this thread. I have around 60 roses in pots and most hybrid tea roses would not survive outside in the NY winter. There has to be a rose genius somewhere with an intelligent fix.

What do you normally do, Lota? Or did you just get them this year?

I am curious about how people would deal with a large number of pots. Over here, I will take my chances and let them be for the most part. I will mulch more and surround with some blankets when it gets coldest. But for you - you need more serious solutions.

It's the same thing, Severe. They just changed their branding in the last year or so. More than one person in the past has surrounded their pots with bags of leaves for success. At the least, I would try to move them next to the house to take advantage of that heat sink. In zone 7b, I don't think it's much of a problem. I've had my pots out in 9F for a a day and they survived. If this is something for every year, I would wrap them in large bubble wrap in an insulative box for zone temps that often reach the teens. It's too cold here for even that. I lost many things this past year when cold air infiltrated my usual storage space that normally never gets below 45F. The one thing is you have yours in large pots so the soil itself is the insulator. Just make sure it has plenty of drainage so if it does freeze the roots can still breathe.

@Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA last year almost all of my David Austin roses survived the winter but it was a brutal massacre with hybrid tea roses. On really cold days I wrapped them in bubble wrap insulation but it did not work. This year it would either have to be shelter in the garage or some kind of creative engineering solution to keep them alive while outside in the backyard.

Lota, just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting bubble wrap for your zone. My attached garage has carried them through successfully for a couple of years. Are your roses grafted? That is impressive that the Austin's all survived. I know the Montreal Botanical Garden grows many higher zone roses which they cover with insulative blankets, but theirs are in the ground.