Sorry to say but my advice is NOT to use them for a number of reasons. First because you do have to cut the roses way down in order to get them on. By doing that you are cutting off a lot of stored energy in those canes that the roses could use in the spring to come back with. Second because they create a very closed, warmer, airless environment that is like a petri dish and perfect for fungal diseases and canker to grow in, even with the lids off. Third is moisture. They don't allow for that airflow and things inside can get very wet, particularly in the spring, and the roses can rot.

If you do decide to use them DO NOT use the lids. You want the roses to get as much air as possible.

Or the lids could be used temporarily if subfreezing temperatures impend.

If you do use the cones, don't fill them with stuff. The cones are adequate insulation. In using them, people are only trying to keep the canes warmer than zero or +5, the temperature where old canes of some roses (typical hybrid teas?) can suffer freeze damage.

Most people would agree with Seil that it's best not to use them in zone 6. Assuming hybrid teas--if it's a cold winter, you will lose most of the canes, but the roses will survive (provided you buried the grafts when planting). If it's a mild winter, more cane will survive without the cones than with them. That's because of the pruning the cones require and the canker disease they may encourage.

My advice is to forget the cones. My gardens are in Zone 6 and I have never used cones and I never intend to. In Zone 6 roses will survive if the grafts of the roses are planted 1-2 inches deep. As mentioned above, there will be some die-back by spring, but that is all right. In early spring, just prune back the canes until you come to solid white in the center. In some cases that may involve just trimming back a couple inches; on other roses you may have to trim back nearly to the soil line--but that is all right. The spring growth will spring forth and the rose take off fine.

Since my neighbors have several oak trees, their falling leaves often blow randomly into my back yard, providing some minimal protection--but some roses get no oak leaf protection at all and still do fine.

Kate

I managed to get my order for rose cones cancelled.
I did lose a few hybrid teas last winter and would like to prevent that this year.
I have read to pile 12" of soil around the base of the plant.
If so, how do I keep the soil from washing away from heavy rain?
When would I pile the soil up? After a killing frost? After the soil is frozen?
Thanks again for your help!

Some hybrid teas are more tender than other hybrid teas. The best thing to do is to concentrate on the hardier ones. But if you have a couple more tender ones, yes, pile up soil or mulch AFTER really cold weather arrives--maybe in January--although my zone 6 typically gets some warmer weather in February and then some colder weather again in March. That alternating weather is what makes the use of winter mulches not very practical or helpful. But you could go out and replenish the soil/mulch in March if it starts washing away. I certainly wouldn't bother doing that for all the roses, however.

Remember that as long as the hybrid teas have a couple inches of decent green on the canes at the soil-line (and white, not tan, in the center of the cane), they will grow back when spring arrives.

Kate

No. No winter protection. The only thing you do is bury the graft below the normal soil level. If you can't grow it, you can't grow it. End of Story. Most properties have microclimates where the more tender roses stand a chance. That's where you learn to put them.

Any time the thermometer goes above freezing, winter protection turns from a positive to a negative. Every time the thermometer goes above freezing, and it is either raining, or snow is melting, it becomes an enormous negative. Since normal eastern winter weather is a combination of dry, cold air from the west and warm moist air from the Atlantic, large temperature swings are normal, and rain is normal when it warms up. Here, we can have a high in the high 40's any time during the winter. South of here, that becomes a high in the 50's. You just can't mess with junk around roses with those conditions.

Thanks for the additional advice.
The roses I lost last spring were probably roses for zone 7B and up.
I need about 6 replacement roses and will pay more attention to hybrids that grow in zone 5 and 6.
I have four Buck roses which don't need protection so I will wait and see how cold the winter is before I try to protect the rest of my roses. Only have a total of 14
Most of the roses I have, had to be cut down to the ground last spring, because they weren't protected and were planted in the spring of 2012. It took them a long time to produce.
When I order for next spring would you suggest own root and if so from which growers.
Thanks again

If you are growing HTs, you really, really, really need grafted plants. If you think the grafted ones are slow to produce, own-roots can take years (if they don't die first)

Palatine in Canada is a good source for modern roses.

Pay attention to *where* in a colder zone people are growing these roses. A midwestern zone 5 is a completely different beast from an eastern zone 5. I don't know of a single eastern cold zone HT grower who doesn't *enjoy* getting replacement roses every year. It's part of the fun.

Mad Gallica is certainly your best source of information about your zone, since she's right that zone 5 midlands is a different thing from zone 5-6 NJ. If you want to try some winter protection, as long as you have the roses and want to give it a go, the rose cones are really not a good idea as everyone else has said.

We have the kind of fluctuations in Nebraska that Mad Gallica is talking about, including 40's and 50's at intervals in the winter, and we alternate Canada weather and Texas weather all winter. Still, we don't have the moisture you do, and that's what you have to watch out for most of all during the winter. I'll bring forward a thread on winter protection that could give you some ideas, but if moisture is the problem you don't want anything on top of your roses that could trap the moisture. There would be some options to build a wind shield of some straw bales or burlap or something around the edge of the rose bed that might help, but remember that each of us are writing about what does well for us in our own zones. Your yard has your own micro climates, and you have your own style and types of roses, and all of these things can make your experience different from even your neighbors. That's what makes this fun (in the long run).

It can be OK if your roses survive but only have a little cane left or just the roots. As they get to be older roses with a better root system, you may find that they regrow in the spring to a normal rose height even after dying to the ground. Again, YMMV but roses are tougher than we think. You'll obviously have an easier time with roses that are hardy in your zone, like the Buck roses and many Kordes, but that's all part of the experimenting.

Cynthia

The instructions I have to hill the soil 12"high and 12"wide should be ignored?
OK, I will do nothing.
Supposed to be colder than normal this winter!

If I recall correctly, you haven't told us whether you buried the grafts when planting. If not, you do need to mound the plants just before temperatures will fall much below 10 degrees.

Zone 6 growers used to be told to plant the graft at grade level, and that advice goes along with the advice you heard to mound everything or use cones.

If you buried the grafts and temperatures of 5 F and colder impend, you can rake some mulch over the crown of the plant for the duration of the very cold weather and remove it when temperatures rise to the high 30s. This might save some cane stubs without incurring canker disease. But 6" stubs don't make that much difference.

I buried most of them but I see a couple where the graft is showing, Mr Lincoln for one.
Mulch is better than soil?
Shredded better than mini chips?
Thanks again

Mulch is not better than soil, but you have to haul the soil in from somewhere, and you can't rake it off and on again.

Maybe you could just raise the grade a few inches around Mr. Lincoln.