How? What with? When? – These are the most important questions we’ll go into.
Before you cover your roses, dig the soil under them at a depth of 25-30 centimeters. Be careful not to damage the roots!
Bend shoots of shrubs and climbing roses to the ground and put on them a layer of coniferous branches. Not to damage the rose bushes, dug them up on one side and lay down, pinning the shoots to the ground. Then earth up the roses, adding dry soil to the base. You should get a “hill” with a height of 30 см. Therefore, pruned tea roses and floribunda get covered with soil almost completely. In the case of shrub roses, after hilling up and bending to the ground, their shoots are usually also covered with a thin layer of soil.
Hilling up helps to preserve a large number of buds, and so in spring it will be possible to apply any method of pruning. In addition, even in a snowless winter, the air temperature under such a cover is much higher than outside; this helps the roots not to be ruined by frost.
Roses should be earthed up in October, before the onset of constant cold weather. The base of the bushes can be slightly earthed when the first frost comes.
For the protection of roots, we do not recommend using highly water-absorbent peat, sawdust and sand, since they form an ice crust around the roses, which leads to cracks in the bark and make plants more vulnerable to infections. And never rake earth from the flower bed in which your roses grow (this would expose the roots). It is necessary to add soil. Add compost, humus or just loose soil. The soil between the rows of roses can be covered with crushed bark or rotted foliage.
Roses should be fully covered in dry weather in late October or early November (in moderate climate). This is to take place when the ground is already slightly frozen and the constant temperature outdoors is between -5°С and -7°С.
Apply ecologically safe and effective methods to cover roses. For instance, there is a simple and natural way of protecting roses in winter, i.e., coniferous branches or dry oak leaves which are put on roses in a thick layer of at least 10 cm. This cover saves roses in relatively mild winters.
There is also a more reliable way to cover roses for winter – the air-dry method. Above the bushes, you install arcs, on which you put two layers of the white Agrotex 60 unwoven covering material or one layer of the special material for the winter covering of roses and flowering shrubs. This method helps you to protect your rose bushes from excessive moisture and freezing.
