Over-Wintering Tender Roses Indoors

Each spring, I buy some cheap hybrid tea roses - you know the ones that come wrapped in sawdust and cardboard paper, then stuffed in a plastic tube?  I plant those in containers as my "thriller" and enjoy long-stemmed tea roses for the summer.  In the fall, I usually just let them die a natural death in the long, cold winter. 

Last spring I spent a little more on my container roses.  For my daughter's wedding, I purchased three more expensive roses:  Bride's Dream, Maid of Honor, and Promise.  They did beautifully and I decided they were worth trying to save.  Initially I planned to trim them back, remove them from the containers and bury the entire rose under several inches of soil, topped by a thick layer of mulch.  This is a process commonly known as the "Minnesota Tip" method and many rose gardeners in harsher climates swear by it. 

That plan didn't quite work out for me.  We had a nice, long Autumn and those roses stayed green and blooming throughout September.  Then, in early October, all my gardening plans got derailed by an early wet snow that caused extensive damage to many of our trees and resulted in many, many hours of clean-up work.  Before I knew it, the soil was frozen and there was no chance left to perform the "Minnesota Tip".

Most rose experts will tell you not to attempt over-wintering roses indoors.  They are prone to pests and disease and just don't do well.  Since I knew they were doomed for sure if I left them outdoors, though, I decided I had nothing to lose.  So, I brought them, pot and all, into the garage, where the temperature remains at about 50 degrees over the winter.  I placed them in a protected area where the frigid air that comes in when the garage door opens is less likely to reach them.

I trimmed the bushes back to about 10 inches, gave them a good bath with a sharp spray from the garden hose to knock off any hitch-hiking pests, and then set them up under grow lights on a timer for 15 hours per day.  I decided to be pro-active about pests and diseases, so I scratched a little bit of systemic houseplant pesticide into the top of the soil.  I watered them well and kept them spread far enough apart so there could be good air movement around each plant. 

Initially, I watered them about twice a month, keeping them a little on the dry side.  In early December, they started to grow.  Shortly before Christmas, I noticed that they were developing buds.  Since they clearly wanted to grow, I began watering more frequently.  To help the buds develop, I started giving them a basic rose fertilizer every other watering. 


Last week, I picked a bouquet of beautiful roses.  Let me tell you, that was a great feeling as the actual temperature outside was hovering around negative 20 degrees with wind chills creating a "feels like" temperature of negative 48. 





I don't know if this method will always be so successful but as of now, I have healthy, happy, blooming roses and I have great plans for them come spring.