I am pretty inexperienced when it comes to seasonal gardening. For some reason I am spacing on what happened last year, but just checking if it is okay to cut down what's left of my hostas and peonies?? They are looking pretty ugly.

Also, as a tonic and denial when I got laid off in March I went and bought myself a bunch of roses- we have some very old leggy ones on the side of my house, but I've never really brought some up myself LOL. Is there anything special I should do to overwinter them?

Thanks so much!
Ellen

Up here we cut the roses back in winter to reduce the amount of 'sail' they present to the wind. They will literally blow out of the ground up here, but I've never seen roses do that before moving here. It's the gravelly waterlogged soil and the hurricane-force winds that do it. I think in Portland area your soil will in general be much finer textured and less likely to let go of the roots when the wind yanks at the top of the plant. Wet gravelly soil has no cohesion, so there's nothing for the roots to hold on with. Wet loam or clay won't have that problem.