Here are some of the things I did to put my gardens to sleep this fall.
First, I begged bags of leaves from my neighbours. Nice crisp maple leaves.... I think I ended up with 15 or 16 bags. I pounded in long wooden stakes into the ground and fastened a length of burlap to the stakes. Backed by the Spirea hedge, the rose garden would be well protected for winter.
Roses don't like to be hilled up until there has been at least one frost... a hard frost is best... meaning the upper inch or few centimetres is hard. As long as the stems are still green, there are nutrients in them that need to be sucked back into the roots to nourish them for winter.
Even after a hard frost, there will still be green, but at least the ground will not be too warm to hill up around the roses. The warmth around the base of the stems is a great place for mice and other small rodents to nest and what tastier morsels than yummy green bark in those long hungry months.... then in the spring, when those nasty wee beasties are fat, your roses are suffering. So wait as long as you can, then cuddle up, and go and hill those roses up.
You can use the earth you dump out of pots, compost is good or any soil you have. Just don't take soil from around the rose itself.... you could damage the roots.
After they are hilled up, dump all the leaves on top - even if you have a foot of leaves, how cozy they will be.
The idea is not to keep the roots warm as it may appear... but to keep the ground around them consistently frozen. It is that freeze, thaw, freeze thaw in both the early winter and late winter - or early spring that is so deadly.... when it thaws, the rose thinks, aha, I should send green out.... and then comes another frost, and kills the tender shoots. So, all this is to keep them frozen... another reason to wait till a hard frost before doing all this.
Sure, it is cold, and fingers and toes get frigid, but at least you can go inside when done... it is worth doing it right. See how lovely it looks? Snow blossoms.
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