Roses are one of my favorite plants in my landscape and you can find so many different types that you can have many color combinations and growth habits. However, some of these roses may need extra care in the winter for the best survival.
Winter Survival of Roses
Many people believe that roses should be pruned in the fall of the year. However, this can decrease winter survival of the plant. Roses have a hollow stem and if pruned in fall and left exposed through the winter moisture can get into the canes of those stems and freeze and thaw through the winter months, cracking the crown, possibly causing death. Shrub roses, including Knock out roses or Nearly Wild roses should not be pruned in the fall and do not require extra winter protection. It would be beneficial to push fallen tree leaves around shrub roses to give a little added winter mulch, if desired.
Hybrid tea roses and others are very sensitive to winter injury in Nebraska and require more winter protection. There are a couple of options in winter protection for these species, rose cones are often chosen for ease of use. If you don’t use a rose cone, you can mound soil up around the plant to protect it from winter injury. Use loose soil and mound it around the bottom 10-12 inches of the plant and then add an additional 1-2 feet of mulch including leaves and straw. You can add a wire fence around the plants to help hold all the loose mulch material in place through winter.
When using either a rose cone or the soil mounding procedure on hybrid tea, grandiflora, and floribunda roses wait until after two or three hard freezes or when night temperatures are consistently dropping into the 20s before adding winter protection. At this time, prune only what is needed to get the cone or soil mounds in place. Leave additional pruning for next spring.
Other Shrubs to Avoid Pruning in the Fall
Spring blooming shrubs should not be pruned in the fall due to flower blossoms that are already set on these shrubs. Spring blooming shrubs can bloom so early in the growing season because they set their flower buds the previous summer and fall. These shrubs should only be pruned within a few weeks following spring blooming or flowers will be reduced the following year. If pruning with a rejuvenation pruning, this is best in the fall to allow the plant to regrow through the cooler spring that typically has plenty of moisture for regrowth. Shrubs will not bloom in the first spring following a rejuvenation or renewal pruning.
It is also best to avoid pruning or cutting back perennial plants in the fall to help with pollinators. Many pollinator insects lay their eggs in the stems of perennial plants or around them in the mulch. If you remove that plant material in the fall or too early in the spring, you can reduce the number of pollinators that survive. Leave the plant material until late April or early May to ensure the full lifecycle of these beneficial insects.
Watering
Roses and these other plants will all benefit from fall irrigation as we continue through the drought. Plants that are healthy and properly irrigated will survive through winter conditions better than those that are drought stressed. Push a screwdriver into the soil to determine the need for irrigation, irrigate if difficult to push into the soil. Irrigate slowly when needed to get moisture down 8-12 inches into the soil for shrubs, including roses. Mulching around these plants will help keep moisture around the plants longer as well.
If you have any further questions please contact Nicole Stoner at (402) 223-1384, nstoner2@unl.edu, visit the Gage County Extension website at www.gage.unl.edu, or like my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/NicoleStonerHorticulture and follow me on twitter @Nikki_Stoner
Nicole Stoner
Extension Educator
Gage County
October 2024