I had never heard of Velvet Fragrance so had to go look it up. It's stunning! And I love seeing 'cold hardy, prefers cold climates' in the description :) If it's any help, I am planning on overwintering my pots (thanks to some great advice from StrawChicago and RoseCanadian on other threads here) clustered together against my garage wall, surrounded by bags of potting soil and leaves, and hopefully they will stay completely buried by snow all winter. I picked that wall because it gets the least sun and hopefully they can just stay frozen instead of getting thawed out and refrozen. But this is going to be my first winter doing that so I don't have any empirical evidence to offer.

I do have Heritage and I am in love with it! It is incredibly hardy, has lived through some pretty awful experiences in my garden, and is still healthy and putting out blooms that have a delicious homemade lemonade fragrance. It is the only one of your collection that I have any experience with but I might be inclined to worry about it the least as it seems like the rose that can't be killed.

Joey, thank you for taking the time to reply!

Isn’t Velvet Fragrance just lovely?! She’s one of my most recent purchases that I couldn’t talk myself out of.

Hmm, I wonder if my shed would be adequate to overwinter my potted roses. I don’t have a garage or a side of our home that‘s available for putting containers against that wouldn’t receive much sun. Is there a size of container that you’ve settled on? I just guessed at mine and chose a few 12” to 13” diameter ones and a couple of 15“-16“ diameter containers. I’m not really sure what is the recommendation as far as size, or whether that makes a difference when overwinter the roses?

Thanks again for the help!

I am not sure about containers to be honest, I have some roses in 5 gallon buckets and some in 10 and 15 gallon stock tanks and am hoping that bunching them together tightly and putting plenty of insulation around the collection will keep them safe. I'm hesitant to go too small on the pots if I can help it because smaller will fluctuate more. I'm not sure about your shed, I might try some in there, and there is a way to overwinter that I can't remember the right name for it but you basically dig a trench somewhere you are planning to dig up anyway and lay the roses in it and cover them over with straw and dirt. I am having a mental block right now sorry!

Thank you!

I think for planted roses that's called "The Minnesota Tip"! Larger pots will have less temperature fluctuation. Good luck, joey. I lost many roses this year overwintering them in pots. They got too cold as the area I normally keep them as it had an unknown air gap. I'm no longer keeping winter pots, but am still deciding where to best keep my cuttings.

@Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley oh no :(

so sorry to hear about your roses! Where did you keep them?

I have an attached garage but there are gaps all around the garage door so it‘s absolutely not insulated. I was thinking of making a little area within my garage creating a little “chamber” and making sure the pots are lifted off the concrete. In spells of crazy cold I would be able to move them to the basement or the 3 season room.

Plan b. Is outside between fall leaves but we have lots of rain which then freezes (basically a giant icecube with leaves)

I’m in south west PA, near Pittsburg.

I’ll have to Google “Minnesota Tip”...thanks!

So, my shed is raised about a foot and a half off of the ground below it. We have a sheep farm and have a ton of old wool we aren’t using. I was thinking about trying to insulate some of my pots by putting them in tubs surrounded and covered with wool. I was thinking this may help level out the fluctuations?

What about the smaller plugs? If I planted them, how would they fare? Would it be better for them to be overwintered in a pot and planted in the spring?

Wool is great insulation, so if I had it on hand I would surely try it...but that's just me, I do like to experiment.

I have planted baby bands as late as the last week of September and had them survive under the snow all winter, so if you have the space to get them in the ground that might be a good option too.

Thanks! I think I’ll try to plant a few more than I was planning to and just try potting 3-4 over the winter to see how it goes. Thanks so much for the help!

I would put them all in the ground. You can always move them next year. Even if you plant them late, the ground doesn’t freeze till later in the year and they are still developing roots and stand a much better chance of surviving.

Manure is also a great insulator!

Dingo2001, I was just outside this morning looking for places to plant all of the roses I have coming. The bands are so small and fragile looking. You think theI’ll fare better in the ground also?

Vaporvac, that’s one thing we always have around. Ha!

Whoa....talk about resilient! I can’t believe she lived through that. She’s gorgeous! I’m so glad I ordered Heritage after hearing your experience and seeing your bloom.

Do you have a vegetable plot or raised vegetable bed? If you don’t have crops there in the winter you can bury your pots there and dig them up in the spring.

I’ve lost plants in 5 gallon and even 15 gallon pots outside even though they were against the house and pretty sheltered.

I actually do have a raised bed that we just built this year. It will be empty for the winter. I’m just a little worried because it will get a fair bit of afternoon sun. Would that make a difference?

Laurel I think they will do better in the ground. How "raised" is your bed? If it's more than a few inches it will be exposed to more harsh conditions so might not be the best option. And the bands are tougher than you think - I ran around like a crazy person last fall cramming things in that I hadn't got planted & I don't think I lost any of them. Are you still prepping beds to plant them in?

The beds, I suppose, aren’t exactly raised off the ground. They are tall planter boxes that run the length of the side of our house. They’re narrow and range from 21” high to 36”. I do think I’m going to try to get them all in the ground after I’ve sat and worried over this for a couple days. I haven’t finished prepping the beds yet so suggestions are welcome!

You still have time to prep 😜.

Also... Do you have deer and wabbits? Because I’m very much already thinking about Winter deer and rabbit planning! Right now those fuzzy cottontails don’t blink at my roses but oh boy did I learn my lesson lol When fall comes they starts nibbling the roses! And the deer are even worse!

CottageGardenRoses, ugh, I would be so frustrated! We do have both rabbits and deer. We also have barn cats which keep rabbit activity down, and a small orchard of apple trees about 75 yards from the house which keeps the deer satisfied. I’d hate to count on that though and wake up to half my roses eaten! Especially since we had a late frost this past spring which really reduced our apple tree production. We do also have a goat that slips in and out of his fenced in paddock....he ate one of my hostas a month ago. 😒

Ooooh I need to see pictures soon of the apple orchard, barn cats and neighbor goat!

I planted 2 apple trees in my backyard, a golden delicious for the deer and red gala for us, well... the deer keep eating the red gala so it might never grow.

The deer walk through my front garden and just now when I walked the dog I noticed one of my roses was missing half of it’s buds, on 1 side!! So it will be a 1 side flowering shrub -_- (if they don’t get the other side too)

A mature shrub can recover but tiny bands might not. I have my small roses in cones of chicken wire but I will have to figure something out for the bigger sized roses and my climbing rose.

Oh no! I’d be so disappointed to see half of my roses eaten! Ugh, I’m sorry. It’s hard to not feel frustrated with the wildlife. We have a handful of cucumbers we planted on the side of our chicken coop that have been a nice treat for a groundhog. My barn cats had 5 kittens this summer and they have been terrorizing my gardens! Not eating anything obviously, but they think all of my plants and flowers are toys to play with.

I’ll have to track down some good pictures of our orchard and farm. Our apple trees are getting old so we’ll need to replace them in the next 5 years or so. Sam, the goat, is pretty entertaining when he’s not eating my plants. My kids like to make a game of “Where is Sam today”. He’s almost never where he’s supposed to be!

I plant to put most of my roses in an area around my house where deer usually won’t go. We’ve also been putting our hair (after haircuts) in my garden beds...we read that this keeps them away? I don’t know if it works but we have strawberries on one side of our house that never get bothered by animals so I’ve assumed the hair has helped.