Hardy shrub roses can and should be planted in our area whenever possible.

Roses are often overlooked as being fussy and complicated to care for. In fact, they can be as easy to care for as any other flowering shrub. Most modern shrub roses repeat bloom all season, and many are fragrant and disease resistant. There is a shrub rose for every landscape.

Hardy shrub roses are also sometimes referred to as shrub, landscape, or old-fashioned.

Hybrid tea, floribunda, grandiflora, and tree roses are all non-hardy roses. In order be classified as a hardy shrub rose, the plant must be able to reliably survive the winter without any special protection. Winter damage can be as minimal as a few dead tips on branches or as severe as the canes dying back to the ground. This is dependent on the severity of the winter, and the specific variety of shrub rose.

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns…or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” – Abraham Lincoln

All roses should be grown where they will receive full to part sun and good air circulation.

We recommend mulching with compost every fall. This will provide nutrients for the roses, help with moisture retention, prevent weeds and provide some winter protection.

Spring pruning will be necessary.

After the snow melts, look at the canes to determine how much winter damage they have sustained. It is best if the damage is pruned out before the new growth begins to emerge. Even if the rose dies back to the ground, it should grow back bigger and better than the previous year.

The roses at the nursery are just starting to bud and bloom. Most of them will continue until frost. Some of our favorites include ‘Therese Bugnet,’ ‘William Baffin’, ‘Cuthbert Grant,’ ‘Winnepeg Parks,’ ‘Henry Kelsey’ and the ‘Morden Series’ roses.