Do I need to take my miniature tea roses indoors for the winter?
Your message doesn’t mention where you live, so I don’t know how cold
your winters are. Bringing your roses into the house can be problematic,
because we tend to keep our homes too warm for the plant, which wants to
go dormant in winter. A cold but sheltered spot may be a better choice.
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you can keep your roses outdoors
year-round. Christine Allen’s Roses for the Pacific Northwest (Steller
Press, 1999) says that miniature roses are extremely hardy, hardier than
many larger roses. They can survive winter in an unprotected pot unless
the soil freezes all the way through.
The following information from New Mexico State University Extension offers similar advice. Excerpt:
“The miniature rose is often hardier than the common hybrid tea rose, so
it will survive but not bloom through the winter in most parts of New
Mexico. It requires a cool, dormant period and will do poorly if brought
indoors where it will stay warm. I have also noticed that if it is
indoors during the winter, it is often attacked and even killed by spider
mites. Other insects also become a problem when plants are indoors.
“You have several options. One is to leave it in its pot and keep it
outside in a protected location. Plants in pots are more subject to
freezing during the winter because the soil in the pot can freeze
completely and drop to a lower temperature than soil in the ground unless
the pot is kept in a protected location. Plants in the ground may have
the soil freeze around the base of the plant, but the roots are often not
frozen. A sunny location that allows daily warming and nightly freezing
of the soil in the pot is not good. You will also need to make sure that
the soil in the pot does not dry completely during the winter. Roses need
some moisture in the soil around their roots even in the winter. Soil in
flower pots dries more quickly than in the ground.
“Another option is to plant the rose in the soil where the soil
temperature will remain more moderate and the soil will dry slowly. It is
late in the season for this, but it can be done. Don’t let it dry after
planting, and by applying a layer of organic mulch (bark, straw, etc.)
around the base of the plant, you can help maintain moderate temperatures
and prevent sudden temperature changes in the root zone.
“Finally, you can keep the rose in a protected, cool location, allowing it
to become dormant for several months, then prune it and bring it indoors
to begin blooming early in the spring. This allows it to have its winter
rest, but you can enjoy its flowering earlier than if it stayed outside.
Replanting in a large pot may be helpful to allow more root growth. A
miniature rose is called miniature not for the size of the plant but for
the size of the flowers. Some miniature roses can become fairly large
plants and need a large root zone to support growth and flowering. That
is why planting outdoors may be the best choice in the long run, but
repotting it allows a potentially useful compromise.”