The beauty of Knock out roses is that there is little needed for them to come through winter.  Stop trimming off the spent flowers and let the seed pods (called hips) form.  Once freezing weather arrives, you can trim them back about 1/3…that’s about it. When we get snow, you can shovel it onto the rose to help protect it from drying wind. If we don’t get snow then cover the area around the base of the rose with evergreen boughs to keep the soil cold.  Once it starts to grow in spring, feed it with Espoma Rose-tone and trim off any stems that died over winter…that’s it!