Hello All!!!

Was wondering what to do to get roses ready for winter? I have had roses for two years now, but we have heavy clay soil, so one is in a container. Also, we get loads of rain in winter...this spring, I spent the better half of the growing season pruning away dead and dying canes and mulching with manure and compost and trying to fight blackspot!!!

So, eventuallly, this worked...but now...I don't know what to do to stop this from happening again??? I have seen that there are systemic rose treatments, but don't know when to use them, if they will burn the plants, or what to do to make my roses really healthy and enjoy the growing season rather than make up for lack of knowledge. I know now that clay soil is terrible for roses, but I got a wonderful showing this summer, so the roots must have found the "good" soil and we must have dug past the "hard pan"...so now, I just need to take better care and precautions to keep them strong!

Any rose growing experts who have any advice at all would really help!!!

Thanks Again!!!
CHEERS!
HOLLYHOCKGIRL

I hope someone answers your questions, I'm waiting to see what I can learn too.

Me too - I'm in zone 4. Help someone?

i'm in 6b and all mine are in the ground (which has a good bit of clay). i just mulch really well with leaves - i set up one of those small plastic-coated wire edger things (got it at the dollar store) around the bushes so that the leaves don't blow away.

i really don't trim them down (unless they are really tall) - i wait until early to mid march to prune back.

I just mulch real heavy..basically you want to cover the bottom branches/graft area to keep it protected from the weather some, be sure to remove the mulch in the spring, and as joclyn said, you can prune it in the early spring. As far as blackspot and other problems with roses, You can buy an all purpose rose spray, which is good against most things roses are plagued by. Also in the spring use a good fertilizer and keep using it according to package directions during the growing season. I really don't know anything about growing roses...my mother does and has many beautiful rose bushes, So all of this info is from her..things she has told me to do to take care of my one little rose bush and so far it has worked great, So in this case Mother does knows best when it comes to roses.