Watering your roses is still important during the winter months. Even if your area does not normally get snow or ice, cold wind and air can pull moisture out of the rose's canes – meaning the soil moisture can also be depleted. Check your soil on a warmer day and give it a light watering if it's needed – do not soak.
Rose Winter Care in Pots
If you have container grown roses, the entire pot can be moved to an insulated yet unheated location such as a shed, basement, or garage where the temperature stays near the freezing mark. Water sparingly only when the soil is dry to the touch, usually once a month.
It's usually best to avoid watering your rose bushes during the heat of the day. Try to get in the habit of watering them first thing in the morning before the sun gets too high. This lets foliage dry off by the time the cooler evening air gets to them.
Prune the plants down.
Prune roses down to their bare necessities so you have less to worry about surviving the winter. Keep the strongest canes and flowers intact before winterizing them. In general, try to trim your plants down to two to four feet in height. This will help new growth sprout in early spring.
To keep your roses from drying out, they can still dry out even if they are dormant, it is advised that you provide your large pots with a gallon of water once every two weeks.
Roses that grow outside need to be watered or they will die in a few days. Roses that grow inside are a bit more forgiving, but they will wilt after about a week or two without water. Additionally, other factors, like the type of rose you have and the current weather, will affect how long a rose lasts without water.
Fall: After the first killing frost, trim longer stems to keep them from snapping in winter storms. Keep rose bushes from being top heavy to protect them from being uprooted in strong winds. Crossing branches that could be damaged by rubbing together should also be trimmed back.
Simply keep the roses at the height, and in the shape, you prefer. When you cut back flowering stems, leave 2 or 3 buds on the summer growth. In the cold season, prune English roses by 1/3 to 2/3 of their height. Almost all roses will quickly grow back and recover if you make any mistakes.
Save the hard pruning for spring. In the fall, cut off any broken stems. Some gardeners like to cut their rose bushes down to a height of 18-24 inches in the fall to prevent wind and snow damage. They also remove the leaves because the weight of snow on the leaves can cause the stems to break.
If roses don't get enough water, they will start to wilt. The leaves will turn yellow and drop off, and the stems will become thin and weak.
By adding coffee grounds to your roses, you create a barrier that will keep pests away and allow your rose bushes to thrive. So if you're wondering whether coffee grounds are good for roses, the answer is a resounding yes! Coffee grounds are an inexpensive and readily available organic fertilizer for your roses.
“Fresh cut flowers have a longer vase life when kept in a colder environment, thus having cold water,” says Amy McCord Jones, florist and owner of Flower Moxie. “Much like fruit and vegetables, cold temperatures extend their shelf life.”
Best Time To Water Roses
Watering early in the day allows the water to soak deeply into the soil and slowly dry up as the day goes on. In addition, morning watering allows the foliage of the rose to dry out in the sun, preventing powdery mildew or blackspot developing from wet conditions overnight.
Chlorosis. Chlorosis, or yellowing leaves, is common in some parts of the country. Rose leaves turn yellow because the pH of the soil is too high, or there's not enough iron in the soil. It can also be caused by a lack of oxygen when the plants are overwatered or the soil doesn't drain easily.
Deadheading is the act of cutting off old blooms to encourage new ones. While roses will certainly bloom again if you don't deadhead, it is true they will rebloom quicker if you do. I generally just snap the the old blooms off when they are finished or do a bit of grooming and re-shape the bush when I'm deadheading.
To Prune or Not to Prune
There are several options: In early November, prune the top third out of plants to reduce and eliminate snow damage if we receive an early, wet snow. Do the finish pruning in the spring while the roses are still dormant but the chances of a hard frost are behind us (about late February).
Don't worry about cutting back too much. Roses are extremely strong and will grow back even if you cut all of the stems right back to the base.
In the fall, take off about ⅓ of each branch that you cut so your rose bush can grow healthy and tall in the spring. You can cut your rose bush down even more if you'd like to change its shape or height. Make sure to leave at least 6 inches (15 cm) of branches above the ground so that your rose bush can grow back.
Finely-shredded, pine bark, mulch is good to use. It creates a nice thick blanket that doesn't get matted down into large clumps. Mound the mulch around the base of the rose to a depth of 6 to 8 inches. This is all we do to protect our roses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden.