What bare root rose varieties are best for my growing zone?Updated 8 months ago
Use the "Growing Zone" filters on this page to search for roses hardy to your zone. Watch a quick video tutorial to learn more.
This hardiness map is a great starting point to learn more about the climate where you live. Your hardiness zone is based on the minimal, historic cold temperature in the zone over a 30-year average. This is helpful information in determining whether a plant will survive extreme cold and how much winter protection it may need. It is not, however, as helpful determining what cultural practices to perform throughout the year, such as when to plant. You can be in different parts of the country with wildly different spring and summer weather patterns, but still be classified in the same hardiness zone because your coldest average yearly temperature is the same.
Zone ratings are a great guideline, and while they can be a good starting point for choosing a variety, there are so many other factors that affect the health of your rose. With more extreme weather events—such as drought, freezes, and floods happening around the world, many farmers and gardeners now use zone recommendations as a guideline only. Instead, they rely on good record-keeping, intuition, and a little bit of trial-and-error to guide them to what is best for their farms and gardens. We leave it up to our customers to make their own decisions about planting in their unique locations based on first frost dates.
You may see different zone ratings for the same variety from different suppliers. This is because their zone ratings may be based on their own individual growing trials. Most breeders do not trial all of their roses in all zones prior to release, but rather in just a couple of different locations that doesn’t necessarily span all 11 zones.
We base our zone ratings based on the breeder’s rating, our own experience trialing the variety, as well as what our customers & other flower farmers tell us. From our growing experience as well as discussions with other large rose companies, we find that pretty much any rose (grafted or own root) will survive in zone 6 or up.