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In autumn, nature prepares to go to bed. The movement of plant juices slows down and leaves fall off. However, for gardeners and vegetable gardeners, autumn is an important time to prepare their garden plot for the next season. It is especially important to properly prepare plants that cannot tolerate cold and need shelter for the winter.
climbing roses require careful care and protection. How the plants survived the winter determines their health, appearance and flowering. Even in shelter, roses freeze or damp out. Question, how to cover climbing roses for the winter, relevant for gardeners. I would like to preserve a beautiful flowering plant, indispensable for decorating walls, gazebos, arches, and fences. Many gardeners refuse to grow climbing roses precisely because of the difficulty of caring for and preparing the plant for winter.
Preparing climbing roses for winter in late summer - early autumn
At the end of summer, you should take some actions that will prepare the climbing plant for the upcoming cold weather. First of all, they stop loosening the soil under climbing roses and reduce watering to a minimum, and then stop it altogether.
Then the composition of mineral fertilizers is changed: nitrogen is removed to prevent the growth of shoots of climbing roses, which will not have time to ripen before the cold weather and, most likely, will die. The last feeding, carried out at the end of August, includes superphosphate (25 g), potassium sulfate (10 g), boric acid (2.5 g). All components are diluted in 10 liters of water and the rose bushes are watered, using 0.5 liters for each.
The most effective type of feeding climbing roses is the foliar application method. The plant absorbs mineral fertilizers not only with its roots, but also with its leaves and bark. For foliar feeding, the volume of proposed fertilizers is reduced by 3 times. After 2 weeks, fertilizing the plants should be repeated.
Autumn care for climbing roses is aimed at ending the growing season of a plant. Since among the many varieties of climbing roses, there are some that bloom until the cold weather.
The next stage of preparing climbing roses will begin in mid-October. Plants are pruned and removed from their supports for subsequent covering. The purpose of pruning: to form the crown of plants, to obtain abundant flowering in the next season and to maintain the health of climbing roses.
First of all, the broken and affected parts of the climbing branches are cut off, then the upper immature part of the shoots is cut off. It usually differs in color. There is no point in leaving it, since it will freeze, first of all, and become a threat to the entire bush. Next, cut off all the leaves and remaining flowers of the plant.
Further pruning will depend on the type of climbing rose based on the nature of flowering and shoot formation. There is a group of roses that bloom once a season on last year's climbing shoots. In autumn, such shoots should be removed completely, like raspberry shoots.What remains are the young shoots that grew this season (zero) and last year’s. You can leave 5-10 shoots.
Climbing roses, which bloom twice per season, form flowers on shoots of different ages from 2 to 5 years. Old shoots of the plant gradually form fewer and fewer buds, so after 5 years of life they should be removed, leaving the youngest and strongest branches. There should be a total of 4-10 climbing shoots left.
It also happens that the plant produces a large number of replacement shoots, which makes the care and winter protection of climbing roses extremely difficult. Therefore, the number of shoots should be regulated. It may be necessary to remove many more of them, as their development will draw on a lot of nutrients, which can weaken flowering.
And the most difficult thing remains - to remove the climbing stems of the plant from the support. Use special gloves to protect your hands from thorns. Then you won’t be distracted by annoying interruptions, and the work will go faster. Climbing roses are unhooked from the support by removing the fastening devices. Placed on the ground and tied together for convenience.
It is not always possible to immediately bend the plants to the ground. Rose branches can be very woody and elastic. Then the shoots in the upper part are tightly tied with a rope and gradually begin to bend down. You can tie the other end of the rope to bricks or something heavy. You will simply move the bricks further away, causing the climbing rose to tilt. The process may take several days.
At sub-zero temperatures, the wood of climbing roses becomes too fragile and can easily break.
There should be no plant debris left in the tree trunk circle. They are a potential threat. Next, the rose is treated with a solution of Bordeaux mixture, iron sulfate (30 g/10 l of water), copper sulfate (50 g/10 l of water). After treatment, the tree trunk circle is either hilled up to a height of 30 cm, or mulched with peat or compost.
The climbing rose can be left in a bent position for a period of 1 to 2 weeks, secured with hooks. Prepare the shelter yourself.
How to make shelters for climbing roses
You will need to cover the climbing rose as soon as it reaches -5°C to -7°C. Exposure to light frost is even beneficial for the plant, as it hardens it and finally puts it into a state of dormancy.
Watch a video on how to cover roses for the winter:
Method 1
Climbing roses are processed and arranged. To prevent contact between the soil and the vines, it is better to place branches of coniferous trees or fallen leaves, boards or roofing felt between them. Gardeners also offer other options for the substrate: plastic bottles fastened together or sheets of polystyrene foam.
Then the arcs are installed. You can buy them ready-made, or you can make them yourself from metal rods or from polyethylene pipes for water supply. The materials are durable, and the arcs will last for years to cover. For additional rigidity of the structure, fastenings are added at the upper points of the arcs.
Make arcs with the expectation that they should not touch the lashes of the climbing rose. It’s good if you have 20-30 cm in stock. With the first frost, a covering material is pulled over the arches: lutrasil, spunbond marked 42-60 g/sq.m. m in 2 layers. Secure the covering using clothespins or paper clips.It is important to secure the covering material well, since in winter there are weather conditions with strong gusts of wind. And the coating can easily be torn off.
The advantages of a shelter with arcs: it is reliable, you can make a shelter for several plants at once with your own hands. The point of such a covering structure is that the earth gradually gives off heat, creating its own microclimate inside, comfortable for wintering roses. In winter, additional protection in the form of a thick layer of snow will lie on top of the shelter.
Method 2
This method is suitable for climbing roses with flexible stems. The stems will need to be laid in a spiral. Wooden stakes or metal rods are stuck around them around the circumference. Some material is attached around the base that will hold the insulation: a chain-link mesh, a metal mesh for reinforcement, thick cardboard or thin plywood that can be bent along the diameter of the base for shelter.
You will get a kind of cylinder, inside of which insulation is poured: foliage, spruce branches, sawdust, hay, etc. The entire structure should be covered with agrofibre on top.
Advantages of the method: saving space and money, you can make a shelter with your own hands.
Other covering materials may cake and stop allowing air to pass through, which will lead to damping off of the climbing roses.
Method 3
The frame of the shelter is made from boards: supports 0.5 m high from thick boards are hammered into the ground along the entire length of the laid rose stems. Boards the same width as the rose garden are laid on them and secured with nails. Long boards are laid on top of the boards at right angles to the previous ones. It turns out to be a lattice of boards.
Spunbond or lutrasil is stretched over such a base for shelter, and securely fixed on the sides with bricks.
The method is reliable, climbing roses never freeze, snow falls on top and is not blown off the horizontal surface of the shelter, unlike the method using arcs. The disadvantages include that during thaws the snow melts, the water does not roll off and then turns into ice. Which changes the protective qualities of the structure for the worse.
A shelter for climbing roses will be much more effective if you tilt it. To do this, you just need to increase the height of the supports on one side by about 0.3-0.4 m.
Another structure made from boards for sheltering climbing roses is a hut. It is made of two shields, which are installed at an angle. On top, boards or plywood panels are covered with agrofibre or film. To save material, you can make not solid panels, but in the form of a lattice. The ends of the hut should not be securely fixed so that during thaws it is possible to open them slightly for ventilation. The good thing about this method is that such shields can be used many times, unlike the previous method, where the structure for covering the roses needs to be disassembled each time.
Conclusion
To prepare climbing roses for the winter cold, proper care is required from the end of summer. Then the need to reliably cover the plants is added to the worries of gardeners. When choosing a shelter, proceed from the climatic conditions of your area.
