Your Moonlight in Paris should survive being planted in ground if you bury the graft a few inches. I'm also in zone 5 and it survived winters for me. I don't know anything about growing roses in pots, sorry.

IME, you want them in the garage when temperatures are going below about 28°F. So they can stay out any time the temperature is going to stay comfortably above that.

Starting bareroots in pots can be a bit tricky. You want something that replicates the idea of mounding up around the bareroot if the weather turns at all hot and dry. I used wet old towels draped over the rose, and kept the roses in the cool, damp basement until they broke dormancy.

wouldnt bother bringing them inside unless it is below freezing by a bit. be sure to cover the canes and dont do any pruning until its warmer. You want the rose to concentrate on root growth. Having said that, you can ferry them in and out if its not too much trouble. I would think that amount of soil would protect the roots.

In the spring with potted roses that have been overwintered in the garage and are accustomed to that environment as well as newly planted bareroot roses in pots, I would recommend protecting them from below freezing temps. I’m not sure what direction your garage door faces but I often set my pots just inside the door and leave it open during the day and close it at night during that transition period - could save your back a bit of trouble :)

In the fall, I leave my potted roses out until the low temps drop below the mid 20s to encourage dormancy and they tolerate this well where they are “hardened” to the swings between night and day temperatures.

I have left my container roses out over winter two years now and they all have done well. I put them next to a west facing wall of my house. I have a moonlight in Paris and it is doing fine in a container. Although I am in little warmer climate in 6a/7B zone. Last Friday I planted 3 bare root roses directly into containers. We have low temps of 28-30 degrees for a couple hours then highs in the 40’s-50’s. In three days our temps are supposed to be 40’s low and up to 70’s for the high.

My containers including the new bare root ones are still on west side of house blocked from wind.

I plan to water them very lightly if the soil feels dry. I have never planted bare roots in containers so it’s an experiment for me, but no other choice so this is what I did.

Lala, how do you transport your containers when they are moved to their summer location? That can be a major problem. Diane

Daine, it is a bit hard. I use a hand cart and my husband ha! luckily I only have to move them about 20 feet into a sunny location.

Diane, with our late spring have you done any pruning yet this year?

Lala, as you may know, March was the snowiest on record since 1952, Bogus Basin will be open until May for skiing, a record late closing, and the snowpack in the mountains is at record levels. I don't know which is the worst, the mud, wind, or cold temps. To get back to your question, yesterday was fairly nice, and I was able to prune two medium large roses before my back gave out. They were the first. Today, is so cold and windy out here, I don't know if I'll venture outside when it hits 40F to prune one or two, probably small roses. This is going to be worse than last year with our damaging freak snow in May, first since 1964. That really damaged my favorite small tree. So, have you progressed much in your pruning? My roses are green and some have little leaf buds just beginning. I still have some spring clean up to do, too! It's been so wet and muddy, and you can't stomp around in muddy flower beds, or worse crawl around them, as I usually do. I thought you probably had some slave husband help, you lucky person. Good luck with your roses. If we have 95 degree temps around May 15, it will be a very short season. Diane

No I have not done anything yet, but they have tiny leaf buds forming. I am tempted to start with the climbers on the fence.

I dunno how to advise for Z5.

FWIW, they are some containers that are -double walled-. Kinda like those thermos bottles for drinks...Supposedly helps with the elements due to the wall type of the planter. I happen to have few of those. On the flip side, I have also planted a medium-decent sized shrub in a 35 G Fabric Pot....

Fabric pot is fairly porus.

Potting Media is fairly airy...

This pot was frozen stuck to the soil that particular winter. I tried to -lift- it and instead, a 30" inch diameter of dirt was coming up with the pot. I for sure though the shrub was dead but it was fine come warmer seasons.

Thank you all for your input and thoughts. I ended up putting one in a pot and one in ground. I am pretty limited in ground space due to needing roses to go into our small fenced in area to protect them from deer. Also unfortunately that area is getting shadier and shadier. Even though most of our trees are ash and had to come down, the fenced in area is to the west of some very tall black cherry trees.

It is unseasonable warm lately so I have left the pot outside in still a semi-protected area, bringing it in for the tornado hazards though! We do get very strong winds even without tornado.

So now I have two roses in pots to overwinter--I will try as Dave mentioned, to leave them out in winter until 20s. This was first winter I did a pot in the garage and I probably put it in the garage too soon. It was still quite green and I'm surprised it survived, but happy of course.

Off topic or on, but how LARGE of a pot minimum do you container rose growers use and how often are you either root pruning or media recycling.

I only grow 2 Standards planted last year in a fairly -large pot-. Maybe not large enough....

I will state my observation as such. The volume of the pot is a vase like cone about 25G in capacity. I was testing it. Seems like the roots may be bottom out already as when I did a lift test, seemed like the potting medium was one large *plug*. And this is after 1 year. Graned the rootstock is ? and since it's a standard, the rootstock may be more vigorous growing /