Winterizing in Montreal

Winterizing in Montreal

Note: Mike Chute of Rhode Island Rose Society contributed an article to American Rose depicting his visit to the Montreal Botanical Garden. For our purposes the following on winterizing is extracted from his article.

The Montreal Botanical Garden known as The Roseraie was created in 1976 to mark the Olympic Games. Its fifteen acres features more than 10,000 roses representing 900 varieties of modern, old garden and species in about 100 beds. This includes 70 varieties of hybrid teas and dozens of varieties of floribundas and grandifloras. The collection contains Parkland and Explorer roses, Griffith Buck roses and four small beds of David Austins, Meidiland and Rugosas. Claire Laberge is the horticulturist in charge.

What makes the Roseraie so remarkable is that a garden of this size and quality can exist so far north. Since Montreal is located in Canadian Zone 5A (US zone 4) Claire Laberge needed to discover methods of winter protection.

She found that the method that works best is the use of protective thermal blankets. These blankets are made of quarter-inch polyfoam with a white plastic cover on each side. Beginning at the end of October and continuing for a month, the staff first prune all the tender roses in the ornamental section to 12 inches and completely clean each bed before spraying an application of Bordeaux Mix.

Next, they construct a frame in the middle of each bed, which consists of chicken wire attached to wooden stakes. This frame will support a snow load on the blanket and will keep the roses from being crushed. Rodent poison is put inside the bed to prevent any field mice infestation. When these steps are completed, the blanket is placed along the entire bed and secured along the perimeter. It is not necessary to add any other protective material. This temperature will stay very stable under the blanket all winter and losses due to the cold weather are marginal.

The hybrid teas, floribundas, Parkland Series, grandifloras and climbers are the only roses in the garden that are winterized. None of the old garden, species or shrub roses are protected, nor are the Austin or Buck varieties. The Austin shrubs tolerate the Quebec winter quite well and suffer only a limited amount of dieback.

To winterize climbing roses, the canes are first carefully taken down from the arbors, tied together and the foliage removed. Then the canes are bent to the ground and a wood and wire frame is erected over the plant. Finally, the bush is completely covered with a thermal blanket. This is all done without any significant pruning. It is this method that enables the Roseraie, even USDA Zone 4, to maintain climbing rose displays well over 15 feet.

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