Oh that brings back childhood memories, Lyn. My parents used to fashion chicken wire circles around the roses every winter. They filled the circles with leaves. When spring arrived, the circles were pulled out and moved to the peonies to help them stand up better.
Every winter, I end up with several roses that get pruned to the ground by hungry bunnies. They pick on roses with small twiggy stems like my Fairy rose and Drift roses. I suspect the coyotes eat a few too. They go after my 'Wild Thing' roses, maybe because they have large, colorful hips that persist all winter.
We brought the tropicals in this week because we had a frost warning. My husband, ever so helpful, carried in pots of hardy plants, agaves, bonsai pine and cryptomeria, and even a few planters of annuals.
After he left for work, I lugged them back out.
He was complaining about how many we had in the house even after I removed a few dozen. He doesn't understand plants that are hardy, but grow in pots. One thing he really doesn't understand is my mini forest of Japanese Maples. He keeps asking me when I'm going to plant all those trees?
I have hostas in pots because the only shade is under trees, and the hostas can't handle the root competition from the trees. The trees will even send roots up into the hosta pots if I don't keep a saucer under them.
It will be a challenge to find a place to grow roses in pots for an extended time. I have good sized pots in lighter colors and I can rig up a drip line for the pots, but I need a place that gets morning sun and those spaces are all taken. I dread the hassle of trying to spread poly over the shadehouse...between the wind and hail and sun, it is a nightmare. I don't want to put the roses under the trees because that's kind of a pretty area. I have 1 week to decide what to do with the Palatine rose order. Hmmmm
