Roses planted in containers may require some form of winter protection in cold weather climates. Because roots in containers lack the natural shelter of ground soil, we protect them by covering them in some readily available organic material – wood chips, chopped leaves, seaweed, or manure. This also preserves their winter dormancy.
However, this method has a major drawback. It provides an ideal winter vacation spot for mice and voles – a toasty place to hang out and multiply with plenty of rose bark and roots to eat. We found this out in March of 2017 when we uncovered our winter crib only to find the roots of every rose eaten and shanks girded. We lost the entire 2016 crop.
We took a few years off but resumed bud grafting roses in the summer of 2022. We enjoy the process and are able to propagate hard-to-find varieties and others that we like especially Brownell roses introduced by Walter and Josephine Brownell in the mid 1950s. (Note: all propagated roses are long out of patent.)
We grafted 55 in 2022, mostly Brownells, that we plan on using as live plant props at our lecture at the American Rose Society’s 2024 national convention to be held in September 2024 here in Rhode Island.
The challenge in the fall of 2022 was how to winterize these 55 budded root stocks planted in two-gallon containers and protect them from being destroyed by rodents.
The first winter was easy. After the now-budded root stocks were completely dormant in late November and mice had found someplace else to invade, we removed the small plants from each container, shook off most of the soil, bundled them together and packed them in 25-gallon plastic tubs and covered with wood chips. Four months later we unpacked 55 healthy undamaged budded root stocks. Voila!
These were repotted in fresh potting soil and were “topped’ in April then began growing vigorously as the budded variety.
The challenge for the second winter was how to winterize 55 now much bigger plants with large root balls as well as fully developed canes and stems – too big to remove from their pots and pack together.
Angelina came up with the solution. She suggested getting a “Bagster,” a thick vinyl 4’ x 8’ bag with 2 foot sides that is designed for construction debris that a truck will come and haul away. Instead of debris, after punching lots of drainage holes in the bottom, we filled it with the 55 potted roses and covered them with wood chips.
Our thinking is the Bagster is tall enough to prevent any tiny intruders from scaling the sides and camping out for the winter. We will know next March.
The next challenge will be timing the second bloom cycle next summer to coincide with September 10 when we present our lecture, “The Brownells: American Rose Pioneers.”
Meanwhile, the roses are taking a break and so are we.
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