Covering and pruning roses for winter in the Moscow region

It's unlikely that a landscaped garden or a beautiful private home wouldn't have a couple of rose bushes. Since ancient times, these beautiful flowers have been a unique decoration for any garden, highlighting the high taste of their owners. Growing these bushes remains a true cult, making the topic of protecting roses for the winter in the Moscow region a popular topic.

General principles

A wide variety of roses are available, allowing you to create truly stunning floral arrangements in your garden that will delight your eyes with their blooms until late autumn. The most popular varieties include park roses, climbing roses, groundcover roses, floribundas, and others.

But like many other plants, roses require adequate winter protection, especially if they are grown in the Moscow region. While gardeners in southern regions may be able to lightly cover the roots or leave the bushes outdoors without additional insulation, in the temperate zone, this is a must. Otherwise, overwintering roses in the Moscow region will result in their death. And even if the flowers manage to survive the winter under a thick layer of snow, with the arrival of the warm season, the frozen shoots will not be able to produce abundant blooms.

Optimal timing

To prevent this from happening, every gardener needs to know how and when to cover roses in the Moscow region. Regardless of variety, roses are considered very strong and cold-hardy plants, capable of surviving significant temperature drops (down to -15 degrees Celsius). If a rose bush has been exposed to frost for a long time, it will die. Short-term frosts are not harmful to the plant.

A more dangerous phenomenon for roses is rotting, which occurs when they are covered for the winter too early, when the ambient temperature is high, and the grower has already rushed to cover the bush with insulation. If the insulation used was synthetic rather than fabric, the plant's death is inevitable. Avoiding this outcome if insulation is not applied in a timely manner is virtually impossible, so don't rush into covering roses for the winter in the Moscow region the first time the temperature drops below freezing. Short, mild frosts in September pose no danger to roses.

Preparing for winter

During the warm season, roses bloom almost continuously, causing the plant to draw all the nutrients and minerals from the soil. Even with generous amounts of fertilizer, the soil becomes depleted and requires additional fertilization for the winter.

Gardeners begin these activities in early to mid-September, using special autumn fertilizers. These must contain the right "autumn" ingredients, as applying summer fertilizer to the soil will trigger vegetation in the bush, causing it to produce green shoots before it has time to prepare for frost. Therefore, it's best to avoid organic fertilizers entirely.

Among the promising fertilizers for autumn, the following stand out:

• potassium;
• calcium;
• phosphorus.

You can try creating a highly effective solution yourself. To do this, dilute one of the ingredients in a bucket of water and then water each plant sparingly. Experienced gardeners recommend a ratio of 15 grams of fertilizer per 10 liters of water. Alternatively, you can save time and purchase a ready-made mixture at a garden store and then apply it to your plants.

Pruning activities

The next key step in preparing climbing roses for winter is pruning. The grower decides when to prune this type of plant based on the current weather and the approximate forecast for the next week. Pruning determines not only the plant's frost resistance but also its growth in the following season. Without this procedure, the bushes simply will not bloom in the spring or will be damaged by the cold.

Proper pruning develops a plant's immunity, making it resistant to frost and disease. Pruning principles are determined not only by climate conditions but also by varietal nuances. However, there are generally accepted rules that apply to all rose varieties.

As early as mid-September (if we're talking about the central zone, like the Moscow region), you can remove all the leaves from the bushes, as they're beginning to wilt. This procedure will prevent excess evaporation of valuable moisture and also protect the plant from leaf rot under cover. Furthermore, foliage can be a carrier of dangerous infections, which are difficult to find during visual inspection.

When temperatures drop below freezing, rose bushes can be pruned. Tall specimens are pruned first. Sharp pruning shears are used to ensure quick and painless removal of excess shoots. Shoots are cut back to leave 1 cm above the top bud.

If a gardener mistakenly cuts a rose too much, this is not yet a cause for concern. The main task is to avoid damaging the roots., and flowering will be possible on new shoots that will begin to form when warmer weather returns in spring. Moreover, deep pruning can be beneficial, as it has a rejuvenating effect and is indispensable for those bushes that are actively beginning to produce new shoots.

Important points

When growing dwarf varieties, remove dead flower heads and slightly shorten the tallest shoots. The optimal pruning length is 10-15 cm.

Park roses often produce shoots with buds that bloom profusely. Pruning these specimens is unnecessary, as the rose will begin to rapidly grow new shoots. This principle applies to any early pruning that encourages the growth of new lateral branches. It's best to prune these parts of the bush after the onset of consistent cold weather.

Spraying and hilling bushes

Every climbing shrub requires regular spraying with specialized pest control products. Roses are a highly vulnerable plant, susceptible to all sorts of diseases and can become a breeding ground for dangerous diseases.

To avoid infection, high-quality antifungal and antiviral medications should be used. Old-fashioned methods like tobacco solutions are ineffective. It is better to give preference to the following options:

• iron sulfate;
• Bordeaux mixture.

The next step in rose bush care is hilling. After successfully pruning, fertilizing, and spraying the plant, you can begin hilling it, loosening the soil as you go. This will ensure effective air circulation due to the lack of weeds and also protect the rose from frost.

Peat, humus, or dried leaves are sprinkled on top of the soil. It's important to ensure that the soil is truly dry, as dangerous viruses, fungi, and parasites can develop in a damp environment. It's best to perform the hilling process in dry, windless weather. Any moisture will cause irreversible damage.

Subtleties of shelter

After successfully preparing your rose bushes for winter, you can move on to the next, and perhaps most important, step: covering them. Today, gardeners cover their plants in a variety of ways, but The most relevant ones include:

1. Covering. After hilling up the roots and placing a layer of mulch on top of the soil, you can lay spruce branches or leaves on top. When snow falls, the rose will be well protected. When using this method, it's important to time the covering correctly, as if you cover the bush too early, it will get wet in the rain and begin to rot. One of the most important rules for covering the rose for the winter is to ensure maximum dryness. Some gardeners also bury the rose completely, covering it with loose, dry soil.
2. Dry shelter. A protective shelter made of plywood or stakes is erected over the bush, to which the covering material is attached. This will create a kind of dome over the bush, which will soon be covered with snow.
3. Wrapping with fabric. Gardeners also use a simpler method: wrapping the stems in warm fabric, which not only acts as a thermal insulator but also prevents the roots from freezing. However, due to numerous drawbacks, this method has not found widespread use.

Rules and recommendations

Without a doubt, the success of growing climbing roses in your garden directly depends on properly covering the bushes for the winter. Only in rare cases do these beauties bloom on last year's shoots. Otherwise, the gardener must take good care of the roots and stems.

Before covering, the bush should be removed from its supports and the shoots tied together to form a bundle of 3-4 stems. These should then be carefully laid on the ground and protected from the cold using a suitable covering method.

To achieve this, it's important to thoroughly cultivate the bushes and hill them up, removing any remaining foliage. Shortening the shoots should be done by no more than a third.

When bending roses to the ground, it's important to be especially careful—woody stems will break easily. To avoid this, bend them gradually. After laying the tied stems and securing them with arches, install a shelter over them. Climbing bushes prefer a dry environment. A shelter made of boards, planks, or plywood can be built over them, further insulated with fabric. With the arrival of winter cold and snow, these beauties will be safe.

With the arrival of spring warmth, you can uncover the rose as early as late March, slowly removing its insulating materials. This step should not be delayed, as roses react negatively to being kept in an isolated space during warm weather and can rot. In this case, it is almost impossible to save them from death.