10 Little Ways to Care for Your Roses Now to Ensure Better Blooms in Spring

When the temperatures drop, most gardeners start putting their gardens to bed. We winterize garden hoses and tools, pull up tender annuals and prune perennials. Roses start to go dormant, but there are little steps you can take now to boost their blooms when it warms up again. Use our tips to get your roses ready for their best-ever spring.

1. Clean Up the Ground and Diseased Leaves

Rake fallen leaves, clean up any plant debris and remove old or decaying mulch. Clip off diseased rose bush leaves. If you see signs of pests or diseases, don't add these materials to your compost pile, where they can overwinter and spread. Bag them up and discard them.

2. Spray if Needed

If your roses do have pests or diseases, treat for them now, as a preventative measure before your plants "wake up" next spring. Wait until your roses are completely dormant (when the leaves drop and/or you have a couple of fall frosts). Then apply an organic, horticultural oil-based spray. Look for the OMRI label, which stands for Organic Materials Review Institute and indicates a product that's been certified to break down quickly and without leaving a toxic residue. Although you can spray your roses into late winter, don't spray if new growth is beginning to emerge or the buds start to swell and break. Follow all label directions carefully, as dormant oils need to be applied at certain temperatures and in certain weather conditions--for example, on sunny, calm mornings.

3. Water Thoroughly

If you've planted new roses, keep watering them slowly and deeply during dry spells. Roses in containers usually need to be watered more often than in-ground roses, at least until the temperatures fall. Roses in USDA Gardening Zones 9 to 11 don't usually go fully dormant, although their growth will slow down during the fall and winter, so water them as needed.

4. Mulch Well

Roses need good root systems to produce lots of blooms, so mulch your plants in early fall, or at least before the first hard frost. Mulch protects the roots from freezing or drying out, so they can take up plenty of water and nutrients when the plants start actively growing again. A 2- to 3-inch layer of shredded leaves, compost, pine straw or bagged mulch is usually enough in warm climates. Mulch also helps hold moisture in the soil and suppresses weeds; replenish it in the early spring. Read on to learn how to mulch and protect roses in colder regions.

5. Provide Sun to Container Roses

If your roses are in containers, make sure they're in a spot that gets full sun for at least six to eight hours a day, unless you're growing roses that can tolerate some shade. If you're planting bare root roses or roses that have been growing in pots, give them full sun, too. Don't plant while the soil is waterlogged, frozen or overly dry.

6. Move Pots

Cold climate gardeners can move potted roses to a cool garage or shed for the winter or put them next to a south-facing wall to help protect them from freezing temperatures. Clustering potted roses near your house can offer a little radiant heat. That's important, because potted roots are more likely to freeze than roots in the ground.

7. Stop Deadheading

Instead of removing faded flowers, leave them on the plant to form rose hips. Hips are fruits that contain rose seeds; when they develop, they signal the plant to stop putting out new, vulnerable growth while the weather's cold.

8. Tie Canes or Prune Very Lightly

Don't prune roses during the fall and winter, unless you're just trimming back tall canes that could be damaged by strong winds. If you prefer, tie long canes together and wrap them in burlap for protection. In extremely cold climates, long canes can be bent to the ground and buried in a method called the "Minnesota tip." It involves digging a trench, tipping the rose into it, and covering it with soil. It's labor intensive, but it's worth the effort in some northern regions.

9. Protect Grafted Roses

Roses that grow on their own roots, like heirlooms and most Knock-Out Roses, are less susceptible to winter damage that grafted roses. That's because a grafted rose has a bud union, a swollen knot near the base where one variety has been grafted to a different rootstock. If a rose dies to the bud union, the plant might survive--but it will grow from the rootstock next spring, and you won't get the blooms you wanted.

If your grafted rose isn't hardy in your USDA Gardening Zone, plant the bud union 2 or 3 inches below the soil level. As a rule of thumb, the colder your climate, the deeper you can bury it. If your rose is already growing in the ground, loosely mound 10 to 12 inches of soil around the bud union to protect it. Use fresh topsoil, potting mix (not a mix with fertilizer), well-drained compost or aged manure. Cover the mound with several more inches of leaves, bark chips, or tree boughs.

To protect the bud union on a tree rose that isn't hardy in your zone, trim the canes to several inches high. Enclose the plant with a cage made from chicken wire, or drive stakes into the ground and wrap burlap around them. Fill the cage or burlap with insulating materials like leaves or straw.

Protect grafted climbing roses that aren't hardy in your zone by tying their long canes together. Leave the canes in place, or gently remove them from the trellis or other structure they're growing on. Wrap burlap around them and stuff straw or leaves inside. Explore 10 easy-to-grow climbing roses.

10. Cover Some Roses

Gardeners in extremely cold climates may also need to protect their roses with rose cones. Rose cones are covers made of vinyl, foam or other materials; wait until after the first couple of fall frosts to put them over the plants. Roses may need to be trimmed so the cones will fit. Be sure they're are ventilated to prevent overheating on sunny days, and put something heavy on top of each one, like a brick, to hold it down.

Learn more about winterizing roses. These little ways of taking care of your roses now will pay off with handfuls of beautiful blooms when spring comes back around.