You might want to search for articles written by Mike Lowe. Once upon a time, not that long ago, he had two magnificent rose gardens in your part of New England. One was at his home, and the other was on a vacant lot (and there was a rose-less neighbor in between the rose gardens.)

My husband said he'd buy that neighbor's house and we could live surrounded by roses without doing any of the work. But we didn't.

Mike died in 2009 in Nashua New Hampshire. He was Director of the New England ARS district for many years and charged for his open gardens (and the money went to support district functions.)

I seem to remember he wrote about roses in Fine Gardening. Also in American Rose Society (back then) monthly mags.

I visited Mike Lowe and his garden and Ann is correct. I would suggest, Marcie, you give roses 2-3 years to establish before you toss them. Some need more time to mature.

Best wishes with your beautiful garden.

Marcie, your roses are lovely!

Those young roses look terrific. Looks like you are building a very interesting collection of varieties, too!

If you future rose selections include varieties that have received either/and ADR or A.R.T.S. designations, winter hardiness and disease resistance issues could be greatly reduced.

There's nothing like NOT having to deal with black spot and powdery mildew, and having roses that are tip hardy. The joy of seeing vigorous, vibrant bushes that have reached their full potential is greatly increased.

May I direct your attention to the new, True Bloom series of roses bred by Ping Lim. True Passion, True Love, True Inspiration, and True Sincerity are impressing me quite a bit.

Moses.

It might also be worth your while to check out Der Rosenmeister - (see link to the left) in Ithaca, New York. Very similar climate to yours, Zone 5b or 6a and a wonderful rose garden and nursery well worth a visit. They have quite a number of events scheduled for May and June.

I visited there a couple of times when I lived in Ontario and very much enjoyed touring the garden and talking with Leon Ginenthal, the owner. He has a font of knoledge about growing roses in the Finger Lakes area, as well as a collection or rare varieties that do well there.

Cheers,. Rick

Thanks, all. I appeciate the tips! I will definitely check all of these resources out. It’s cold and snowy here right now, and I am REALLY looking forward to next May! 🌹

So pretty! Kudos on your new garden!

Your post absolutely doesn't apply to my conditions, but it's beautifully informative and so are the comments. I do love to see a good lively thread.

A pleasure to hear from another (new) cold weather rose gardener. Moving from one climate to a different one does involve a learning process.

Best of luck with your new rose garden.

Take a look at a nursery pretty close to you in Canada. Lakeview Roses. They have many cold hardy roses grafted onto cold hardy multiflora rootstock.

I was not impressed with their hardy rose selection. Did I miss something?

Wonderfully healthy looking roses!! I adore your DD bloom...those colors!!! And your Frida Kahlo bushes are spot on perfect with lots of blooms. Well done! :)

Thanks everybody for your encouragement! All the roses made it through our intense winter (except maybe for Distant Drums, which looks sad and like it has diseased canes…we will see). They are slowly leafing out now. I am excited for the first blooms, and of course am thinking about more roses to plant 😊🦋

Yes, :) :) Thinking about more roses to plant...so am I. lol

I have not been on here, probably since early last summer. I saw your original post and smiled at this part: "when I returned it was 10 degrees and snowing…so right now they are not winter protected, except for some compost."

Snow is the best and only winter cover I use. I had some over-winter losses in Spring 2025 when we had very little snow, but each one had a serious case of crown gall, so I dug them up, and even those roses had some growth beneath the surface -- I still wanted to be done dealing with their crown galls, and so I left those spots go fallow. Winter loss for me is very unusual unless I have disease problems during the previous growing season. Last year black spot was also problem. (The local farm supply store did not sell fungicides for gallon sprayers last year, and I used a systemic that went into the ground from Bayer, that was not as effective as spraying before rainfall).

I had no winter losses this year which is typical. We had a bit more snow this winter, but still not very much snow, and our lowest temps were probably about -10 very briefly once or twice. It was a mild winter here.

It is good to hear that either all roses made it for you, or at least less than 10% were lost. If you pull back the mulch from the center of the rose if it is warm it will warm the area around the rose and promote growth.

Thank you, Mark, that is very helpful! We had decent snow this past winter, which I am sure helped insulate them, though I did get some rabbit damage. Distant Drums was very prone to disease before the winter. I planted 3 new roses yesterday (Sultry Night, Louise Clements and Countryman). We will see how they do! 🦋