Rose garden plan: hardy varieties, layout, winter cover

We are laying out a rose garden on a family plot and we need a planner who has actually wintered roses in a cold region, not only drawn a pretty picture. The bed is a rectangle of about ninety square metres on the south-east side of the house: full sun from sunrise until roughly four in the afternoon, then shade from an old apple tree. Winters here drop to minus twenty-eight degrees, often with bare ground in December, and the lower corner of the plot lies in a hollow where cold air and damp settle and stay for days. The soil is heavy loam with a clay pan some forty centimetres down, so meltwater stands after every thaw. I want the plan to say plainly which spots must not hold roses at all, and what we plant there instead.

For the planting itself I expect a mixed structure rather than one fashionable collection. Climbers go on a wooden support along the fence on the windward side, a group of park roses forms the backbone that survives a bad winter without drama, and a smaller front row of hybrid teas is there for cutting, since those will clearly demand the most attention. In total I am counting on thirty to thirty-five bushes, with spacing worked out separately for each group, a drawing to scale, and a short honest note on why every variety is on the list: its rated hardiness, its behaviour in a wet spring and how much it suffers from stagnant air.

The practical part matters just as much as the design. I need soil preparation described step by step: digging to a full spade depth, breaking the clay pan, the drainage layer and what to backfill the trench with, plus the acidity we are aiming for. Then planting with the graft union set below ground level, mulching, and a drip line laid so that the foliage stays dry. Finish with a seasonal calendar: pruning by group in spring, feeding dates, when to stop watering in autumn, when to hill up the bases, and how to build an air-dry cover on a frame with breathable material so that the bushes do not rot during a February thaw.

— a scale drawing with spacing, paths and the support layout;
— the variety list by group, with hardiness ratings and comments;
— soil, drainage and irrigation specification with volumes;
— a month-by-month care card and the winter cover assembly.