How and what is the right way to cover roses for the winter?

How to prepare flowers for winter

Preparing roses for winter, as experts like to repeat, begins with planting them. You need to think about this not only when choosing a place in the garden, but also when buying a seedling. It is better to choose varieties that can survive the cold if there are severe frosts in your area, and greenhouse roses are generally not advisable to buy if you are going to grow them outdoors.

Different groups of roses differ from each other in their attitude to frost, so park or landscape roses endure winter much easier than hybrid tea or any exotic ones. Even if the seller guarantees that the wintering of roses can take place without shelter at all, it is worth considering how to insulate roses for the winter, the first in their life on the site. Maybe later it will be enough to huddle with earth, but the first time insulation is necessary. If you do not know which variety is growing on the site, and whether you need to cover roses for the winter, it is safer to cover roses for the winter.

Preparation for winter begins in the middle of summer, when the plants are no longer fed with nitrogen. By the end of August, it is advisable not to cut off all the flowers, but to leave a few so that the fruits ripen - this will set the plant to the end of the growing season, to prepare for wintering, new shoots will no longer form, which still will not have time to ripen before the cold weather arrives. Caring for roses in the fall is somewhat reduced, since September it is no longer necessary to loosen the ground around the stems for the same reason, so that new buds do not wake up and new shoots do not grow, watering practically stops.

In early September, an inspection of the bushes will allow you to draw a conclusion about their condition and decide how to prepare the roses for winter further. The presence of young shoots and red leaves indicates poor readiness for the dormant period. Pruning such shoots before sheltering for the winter is an essential step in preserving the plant.

Leaving in the fall comes down to pruning leaves and harvesting them, very rare watering and even more rare dressing. With the onset of cold weather, all the leaves are gradually removed, and the shoots are trimmed.

In hybrid tea roses and floribundas, in the fall, they do not count how many shoots should remain for the next year, they simply remove the damaged ones and shorten everything so that the bush completely fits under the shelter. Varieties of climbing, ground cover and scrubs are shortened even more carefully, because all their beauty depends on the length of the shoots, and excessive pruning can even deprive them of flowering next year. Pruning should be completed with the onset of subzero temperatures, all cuts should be treated with garden varnish, all leaves and branches should be removed from under the bush, it is advisable to always burn them in order to exclude fungal infections.

These delicate flowers perfectly tolerate a drop in temperature to -5 or even -8 degrees, such frosts do not destroy, but only temper the plants.Shelter of roses for the winter is done when the thermometer drops even lower, and before that, preventive treatment of roses with Bordeaux liquid or iron vitriol does not interfere.

Video "Preparing for winter"

From the video you will learn how to prepare flowers for the winter period.

What to feed in the fall

Nitrogen fertilizers promote the growth and formation of new shoots, which is why they cease to be applied in the second half of summer, but plants need potassium and phosphorus for general health, strengthening immunity, and ripening shoots. It is advisable to make a few more dressings, to give the plants superphosphate, boric acid, potassium sulfate or potassium monophosphate. Top dressing is applied simultaneously with watering, mineral fertilizers are diluted with water, separate watering is no longer performed.

How to insulate flowers for the winter and when

You have to take care of roses all year round. What to do with roses in summer is understandable, in autumn all thoughts are directed to how to preserve roses for the winter. In winter, it is important to ensure that dew or condensation does not collect under the shelter, because plants rarely freeze out, periods of temporary warming bring them more harm, during which dormant buds wake up, moisture makes its way to the shoots if there is no access to fresh air.

The nature of wintering is determined by the weather conditions of a particular region and the winter hardiness of the variety. So, in the south, roses usually hibernate without shelter, it is enough just to cover them with earth, sometimes even cover them with dry leaves. They do it in November. In the Leningrad region, the middle lane, the Volga region, roses begin to close in the second half of October, when constant frosts come, and the thermometer drops below -8 degrees. For the winter in Siberia, in the Urals, all roses are covered, they do it very carefully in September. The easiest way is to dig out the bushes, transplant them into tubs and take them to the basement, but you can provide care for the roses for the winter and in the open field.

Covering material for roses for the winter is used in a variety of ways. These are spruce branches, dry leaves, kraft paper, lutrasil or other similar modern material. From above, the insulation is usually covered with plastic wrap to protect it from moisture. The frame for the structure can be wooden (but not cardboard) boxes, metal wire, boards or wooden shields. The bushes are piled up to a height of about 20 cm with earth, which was brought from the garden, but not from under the rose bushes - it may contain pathogens of fungal diseases or larvae of harmful insects. Experienced flower growers do not advise using sand or peat for hilling, because they easily absorb moisture, and this is not necessary at all for the winter, you can take humus, compost, but from above it must be covered with earth.

If the shoots are bent to the ground, then they are placed not on bare ground, but on something that does not allow moisture to pass through - boards, polystyrene, spruce branches. All wooden elements should be treated with an antiseptic, some are even treated with insecticides in order to protect plants from pests. It should be noted that coniferous spruce branches perfectly protect from rodents, in general from all parasites, but dry leaves attract mice. The bent lashes are fixed with special pins made of wire. Bending down some bushes, especially shrubs, begin in the summer, gradually lowering them lower and lower to the ground, tying them to pegs, so that before the time of warming comes as close as possible to their tops to the grafting points. Some standard roses can also be bent or put on their side, digging up on one side. Usually, this can only be done with young plants, the older they get, the less successful it is.

Warming methods

Insulation methods depend on the expected cold weather. In the southern regions, you can very often get by simply by pruning and hilling the bushes with earth. Exotic varieties are covered by caring flower growers with dry leaves and covered with spruce branches.Where severe frosts or difficult weather conditions are expected, implying an alternation of frost with thaws, the best option is an air-dry shelter, when a frame covered with insulating material is installed around a bush or a whole flower bed. Such a shelter perfectly maintains a comfortable temperature from zero to +4 degrees, does not allow snow or wind to damage the shoots. And during thaws, it can be opened slightly to ensure air circulation, the roses are ventilated, moisture does not collect inside, and the overwintered bush begins a new growing season healthy and strong.

After hilling the roots, bending the shoots, laying them on a waterproof base around the bush (or several), construct a frame so that at least 40 cm of free space remains between the roses and the covering material.

If frosts are expected more than -25 degrees, then it is worth digging a bush on the floor of a shovel bayonet around the perimeter and deepening the walls of the shelter into the ground. You can build walls of polystyrene, wood, plastic, fill all the space around the shoots with dry leaves, cover with spruce branches on top, and over this all build a strong roof and cover with lutrasil, and on top - with a film.

Lutrasil or other insulation is fixed on the frame so that the wind cannot move it, but they leave a place where it can be easily opened if necessary. Lay a film on top to protect it from moisture, press it on the ground with stones, boards or just the ground. Shelter for roses can be made of wooden shields, put by a hut, and put the insulating material on top. Pegs are driven into the ground to fix the shields. The frame can be of any shape suitable for building a shelter or for decorating a garden in winter.

Such a shelter is prepared gradually, the roses are closed when the ground around is dry, part of the structure is left open for ventilation, and it is completely closed with the onset of a constant temperature below -10 degrees. You also need to open it gradually, ventilating the shelter with each thaw.

Climbing roses are usually removed from the trellises, folded on the ground, placing a waterproof substrate under them, but sometimes they are covered with trellises.

Standard plants that could not be placed are covered in their usual position. The shoots are collected together, tied compactly, wrapped in burlap, lutrasil, and covered with a film on top. The stamp is wrapped with kraft paper or lutrasil.

Particular attention should be paid to wrapping up young rose bushes, after a good winter they will bloom beautifully.

Video "How to properly cover"

From the video you will learn how and how to properly cover rose bushes for the winter.