Frost-Resistant Roses That Don’t Require Protection
Not having to cover roses is the dream of every rose grower! Oh, the problems it would alleviate and the gardens we could create with roses. There would be no end to the rose gardens.
I live in Belarus, which is in the fifth climatic zone. Here, roses require protection. Without it, the entire aboveground portion dies, and some roses don’t survive at all.
I have three large rose gardens with over 100 rose varieties, emphasizing the word “varieties” and not just rose bushes. There are even more bushes. And of course, I used to cover them every year, with the help of my spouse. I could never have done it on my own. We built long tunnel-like structures to protect them.
In the past few years, I have revised my rose gardens and gradually got rid of the very demanding roses. Some didn’t want to grow, occupied the space of others, and consumed fertilizers, treatments, and coverings. Some grew excessively but produced few flowers, and so on. Additionally, the fact that we were planning to move to a new house played a role, and I decided that I wanted to have a winter garden with decorative roses without makeshift structures in it.
Therefore, this winter, I decided to experiment and not cover my roses at all. And I identified five highly frost-resistant roses. Roses that do not require protection, and I want to tell you about them in this article. It’s based on my own experience, as I only share what I am confident about.
By the way, some roses froze completely, while others were pruned to ground level, and some few shoots are slowly withering away.
There are exceptions, such as no fertilizers, treatments, not pruning them in autumn after flowering, and many other factors. But that doesn’t suit me. I need roses that are pure, healthy, well-fed, and well-maintained for my winter garden. It involves partially pruning the shoots, depending on the rose groups, without seed an
Rose James Galway. This is an incredible beauty that surprises me not only with its frost resistance, as it turns out, but also with its rapid growth, abundant flowering, and pleasant delicate fragrance.
In my garden, it has already reached a height of 3 meters! I call it the “giant rose”! It was impossible to bend James under cover because it’s not just a rose bush, but a huge shrub or tree.
Rose Artemis, a shrub. It amazed me a lot, words can’t describe it! This rose blooms in two bright waves and for a considerable period. It has large clusters with dozens of white flowers. When it blooms completely, it’s hard to compare it with anything. It’s not just a bride’s bouquet, but an airy, delicate white cloud. Moreover, this rose is disease resistant, which is not insignificant.
It survived the winter standing, right to the tips. And yet, out of habit, I pruned it for protection, but I could have left all the shoots. Imagine what it would have been like? It would have been a white fireworks display!
Roses Mary Rose and Winchester Cathedral. These two English roses grow together in my garden, so I won’t highlight them separately and describe them. Because they have a little backstory. Winchester Cathedral rose is a selection from the Mary Rose variety.
Therefore, their bush form, size, flower shape, and disease resistance are all the same. Only Winchester Cathedral has white flowers, but sometimes there are pink streaks on its petals, a memory from its parent source.
They survived the winter standing, without any cover, inclinations, and the like. I didn’t even prune them. After winter, all the green shoots were intact; I didn’t remove a single one.
Rose Geoff Hamilton. This is a huge shrub rose that I started training as a climbing rose. It has tremendous growth speed and produces long shoots that I tried to preserve from year to year. This rose has a fragrance and delicate color, plus very abundant flowering. Anyone who sees this rose falls in love with it instantly!
Like all climbing roses, I tied Geoff’s shoots together and bent them to the ground. It overwintered lying on the ground, but without any additional cover. Only the snow, which fell for a day or two and disappeared for two weeks. That’s how it overwintered.
Healthy and green, I pruned some tips, and I had to renew a few cuts. Overall, it can go without protection. If it’s so strong, I’ll try leaving it standing in the coming winter, thinking it will handle this task easily and perfectly.
I have told you about these five super roses that I didn’t cover, and they overwintered standing and in full height, with green shoots to the tips. But notice that out of these five roses, four are English varieties. That says something too!
