Put your roses to bed after several hard freezes

Winterize your hybrid roses after there have been two to three hard freezes (temperatures in the teens Fahrenheit), which typically occurs in late November at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

This year has been quite different, so winterizing will probably need to be done in early December. Cut back the rose canes to about 18 inches and mound the roses with 12 to15 inches of compost or mulch for the winter.

Do not use grass clippings that mat down and hold moisture around the plants. It is best to clean up and remove any rose leaves that have fallen if you have had problems with black spot — a common fungal disease. This disease overwinters on infected foliage.

I see many home gardens with shrub roses or landscape roses that do not need to be pruned or mounded for winter protection.

Other winter tasks

• Clean out your gutters once all the leaves have fallen. Leaves clog up gutters and it is difficult to remove them once they have frozen, so monitor weather when planning this work.

• Frozen pots outside also prevent you from inserting cut greens for winter decoration. Move the pots inside a garage or other protected area to thaw them out so you can insert the branches.

• A quick way to clean up leaves is to rake them onto a tarp that is at least 8 by 10 feet in size and drag them to the curbside for pickup to a compost pile. Leaves are not heavy, so it is possible to remove a large volume without much exertion. I pile my extra leaves up in the back corner of my garden. Since they are not shredded nor in a compost pile that is managed, it takes about two years to get usable compost from them.

• Some lawns need to be mowed again due to the warm weather. At home I have been mowing about once a week through November to grind up the falling leaves. My lawn has not grown much as I have not fertilized for several years.

• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.