I think if it is cloudy and damp, and cane-killing temperatures do not threaten, you are better off not mounding. You might consider spraying the canes with dormant-strength antitranspirant at a time when the material will dry promptly.

I have had good success mounding bareroots when planted in earliest spring. One thing this does is to protect new basal breaks when they emerge before it is safe. I use soil rather than mulch.

I have only planted once once in late autumn, and this experiment failed owing to warm temperatures in December. About 1/3 died over winter. These plants were mounded. Fall planting is risky in eastern US zones 5-7 owing to unpredictable temperatures and lots of rain.

Zero C will not harm any part of a rose. The hardened canes are safe down to about -11 C. The new growth cannot survive -3, so I think it is a good idea to flick off the growth buds before they die and rot.

I think this is a great example of what might be right in one area is not in another.

Here in SoCal, the bareroots I would buy will not be available for almost two months. But they are already being dug up, processed and placed in cold storage. By the time I get my bareroot in the ground, I could end up with a cool damp spell or we might be having days of t-shirt weather even if it is January. Last year we only had a bit over 3" of rain in the area. If we had the bareroots in the stores now, we might get lucky with damp weather or have winds that dry and cook in no time at all. This is fire season here still due to those hot dry sundowner winds.

To mound or not to mound probably is best decided by your weather forecast.

I agree that for the right place mounding does work. It depends on your rainfall and humidities. This year I wouldn't have mounded anything because it was a very cool, wet, grey spring and early summer.

The point of mounding is to hold moisture in the canes while the plant is forming enough roots to supply water. If it's already very wet you don't need to hold moisture in and that's when it can turn to a problem and cause rot.

In my area of high humidities when I plant bare roots I watch them closely to see if mounding is necessary before I put it on. For the most part I never have to mound them because they don't show signs of dryness before they begin to leaf out and grow. I think it's something you need to play by ear and watch your climate and the rose you are starting and take your cues from those.

I have never mounded a rose....in fact, I can only think of one reason for mounding things up and that is to create many more basal growths or even separate plants when a plant has been stooled right back to the ground - cotinus, for example or to encourage a tree such as a birch, to grow as a multi-stemmed shrub. I am certain it might well be useful in some northern zones, but not really ours, Bart. If I had some tender plants which needed winter protection, I would be going down the fleece route....or at a stretch, using something like bracken in an enclosing wire cage.

Thanks for your responses, one and all!I never heard that mounding would encourage basal breaks before;if so, that would be an excellent reason to mound, IMO.I get the idea the mounding is done for various reasons: conserving moisture is one. In cold climates, to protect from cold...I guess I'm thinking though that, in my climate, so subject to enormous temperature flux,it might also serve just to keep a more stable environment around a baby rose.
For now, I'm not going to do it,because the forecast is still for rainy,relatively warm weather. We'll see how things go: this morning the forecast for next week was for temperatures to go down to around zero or -1 Celsius,which would still be fine,but if it starts getting seriously colder, I'll probably go ahead and do it. Fact is, my land is far from my house. The road I must drive to get there is hilly, facing North (though the garden has a south-western exposure). I always worry about a sudden cold snap,with ice and snow,which prevents me from getting out there for a week or so! (my little Punto car can't handle icy roads)...regards, bart

How far, Bart? Sounds like a similar scenario to me since I am still based in Cambridge (just) while my wood is 60 miles away in Norfolk - an hour and a quarter driving- which we have been doing every week. My allotment is also not near my house (although considerably closer than the wood), it still entails a bike ride. Can you keep tools at your land (a shed?) or do you have to transport them too?
On the plus side, it is really nice seeing the changes which occur over a week or so and we stay for a couple of nights in the horsebox.....but there is never enough time to really get going on big projects - it is just mainly tinkering about.
By mounding, do you mean mulching? I regard mounding as something other which occurs at certain points in the plants lifecycle....and is done only for certain plants which sucker, in order to separate new plants from a basal crown (I think heather is one of those....but not sure whether it is ling or erica). I cannot imagine you get colder than East Anglia and I have never mulched a rose, despite even last years -17.....and have never lost one either - although my soil is well drained loam and not thick heavy clay. I have had roses in pots that have frozen solid for up to 2 weeks - everything just shuts down into a sort of hibernating limbo (wish I could). At the most, you could make a loose jacket of horticultural fleece (which will lift the internal temperature by 3 degrees).

Luckily my land is not THAT far; it's about a 30-to-40 minute drive from home (I don't drive fast, btw, and in any case, on snaky hilly roads,one sort of has to go slow...)I can keep tools there, in this big ,ugly metal construction built by the previous owner,but I wind up keeping the most-used ones in my car a lot of the time.Sadly, I have no place to stay over there, and in any case my DH and son have different enthusiasms!
By mounding I mean the concept of protecting a newly -plante bare-root rose with a mound of material around it's base, placed so that only the tips of the canes stick out. Usually people say to use soil for this, so picture a mound of soil covering the graft union and the lower parts of the baby canes.So, it's like a mulch, protecting the roots a bit, but it's also protecting the canes.Now, for some reason, in my garden, I have had trouble with canes rotting under the mounds: well, to be honest, this only really happened that one year that I mentioned in my first post. Someone suggested using manure/organic matter as the mounding material (I believe it was a lady in New England, USA) Well, for me, this was a disaster. I lost so many baby roses that year; they got canker or just plain rot that spread down to the graft... This really spooked me. Last fall, I tried using peat moss, thinking it would be less prone to bacteria, but again got spooked, seeing how uber-soggy it became under the mounds.So, I un-mounded all of the babies, and re-mounded them , using a mixture of wine corks, pieces of styrofoam,held in place by gravel and sand.This worked. Clearly, it's important in my garden to keep the canes fairly dry and the roots moist.I say, IN MY GARDEN, because from various rose forums, I see that for many-most?-people, this cane-rot stuff has never been a problem! I suspect it may have something to do with the climate here. I think that it's not just low temperatures that come into play.Here in Italy, we can get some wild temperature fluxes, even from day to night, just because, when the sun comes out, it can be so hot. Now, in November, it's so low to the horizon, and besides, it's been raining so much,so it's a very stable environment for newly plante roses.But our winters can offer some dramatic temperature swings. To give an idea, last winter, we had some very heavy snow; at least a foot deep. During the days after it had fallen, the sun came out, and I remember shoveling deep snow,sweating heavily, wearing boots, snow pants (because of the wet, cold snow), and only a shirt on top! But then, the sun goes down,the temperature plunges,all the stuff that melted under the hot (relatively speaking) sun freezes into ice,and then can't really start melting again until the afternoon of the following day.Do you see where I'm going with this? My land, exposed to the south-west, is going to get quite warmed up during a sunny but cold winter day, and then freeze during the night. The road that I have to travel-facing north-could remain un-passable by me for a couple of days-or more, considering the extremes we've been having in weather in recent years.Instead, I think England tends to have a more consistent climate,; I don't think you'd have the same toasty-sun issues there that we have here in Italy. As you yourself say, Campanula, "everything shuts down into a hibernating limbo". Here, it often doesn't! I still have flowers;many roses still have leaves,most of them have the little leaf buds on them...my Okame cherry tree actually RE-BLOOMED. So, it's very confusing as to what the best course might be...which is why I started this thread in the first place.Discussing things can help clarify ones ideas,and I'm grateful to you and all forum members who participate. regards, bart