If you get a lot of rain/snow like we do please be careful about pililing leaves or mulch around rose canes. I tried mulch and shredded oak leaves a few times and each time it caused severe canker on the canes here.

I put down wood chip mulch in April then will apply more mulch the following year or two years later in Spring.
I keep the mulch a few inches away from the canes.

If you wait until colder weather to apply mulch the mice, voles, moles will more and likely have already found somewhere else to nest.

This post was edited by jim1961 on Sun, Oct 27, 13 at 21:47

Jim,
Thanks for the tips Jim. We just moved from the State College area where I had no issues with the mulch to the Williamsport area so not sure what it'll do here since now I am in a valley and further north.

Maybe spring application of mulch will be better. I just hate how quickly I disturb the spring mulch with all of the planting and moving I do. I was trying to mulch later but this sharp temperature drop made me think I needed to get it done.

I don't mulch. I just mother nature do her things and leave the leaves in the beds on the theory that roses have been surviving thus for millenia. If a rose can't survive, It probably shouldn't be planted in my zone. By and large, people over-mulch. We've been sold on the idea by the lumber industry; it found a way to make money off bark, which is otherwise useless. Mother nature also has a solution for moles and voles: cats.

If you plant your grafted roses 1-2 inches below the soil line (which is what you should do in Zone 6), you don't really need to winter mulch for protection. In fact, I mulch nothing for winter protection. I mulch for summer protection--to conserve moisture and to hold down the weeds.

If you do winter mulch, it should be done AFTER a hard freeze (like in January) and pulled back every time the weather warms up. As you can see--too much work!

Leaves from my neighbor's oak trees blow randomly through my back yard and probably give some random protection -- but a lot of the roses still are exposed to the temps and still do fine.

In the spring you will start trimming back until you reach healthy WHITE interior of the cane. For HTs, that might be a few inches from the soil line--which is fine. With the spring sun, they will start growing fine.

If you just need a limited amount of mulch, buy a few bags from Home Depot for about $6.00.

Kate

I don't, and I do the same as Jim. Williamsport (my nephew lives there) gets wet, and I would think the mulch would too, resulting in canker.

Karolina11

I'm about 35 miles from State College in Tyrone Pa.
And about 87 miles from Williamsport.

Williamsport is in growing zone 5b Karolina11...

Thanks everyone, big relief to hear other people are fine with no mulch for the winter. Jim, I thought you had mentioned you were in Tyrone before, great to see someone else in the area. I am about another 30 minutes east of Williamsport so we are 6b with pockets of 6a per the new USDA map. We're also in the valley surrounded so warmer than the mountains around us although we will see how this winter is. Kate, great reminder that I can buy bagged mulch. I will look around and see what works best.

Thanks again!

This post was edited by Karolina11 on Mon, Oct 28, 13 at 21:30

oh ok Karolina11... I plugged in Williamsport zip code and that's how I got the zone 5b....

I experiment here... What works I keep on doing.
What does not work I quit doing ...lol

I used to mulch but I haven't for the last few years. My Grandmother and Mom never did any winter protection and their roses came back year after year just fine. If the roses is hardy for your zone, planted deep and healthy they should winter.