Can This Rose Bush Gamble Be Made To Pay Off?

[virginiadear]

First, I should say that although I've had to prune and feed roses, and while I know that they are an ancient and very tough shrub, I've never actually planted roses.  So, if the collective mind of the gardening community would come to my assistance, here, I shall be most grateful.

A few weeks ago, matanai had posted to this community about roses at Big

Comments

[liminalia]

Nick the bark on a side branch and peel it back a little. If it's still green underneath and the pith seems moist, there's a chance. Get them in the ground and watered asap!

[virginiadear]

Even the seeming-dead ones, if there's some green? (I've been watering, by the way; not a huge amount of water, just enough to "feel" it through the packing, but four of the six seem okay with what I've been giving them...)

Will do!
Oh---we haven't had our last frost date yet (that's mid-May, usually.) Will that make a significant difference, or will the roses just wait and or fall back and re-group if necessary? We're not expecting snow that I know of but it is *brisk,* still, and we can have frosts over night.

[liminalia]

Hmm, I wouldn't put them in the ground then. Can you plant them in containers and transplant later? The problem is you've started watering them, which has broken their dormancy, although being at the warm store probably did so, too. If you planted them now, I'm afraid the frost would kill off any new growth.

[virginiadear]

Yes, ma'am, planting into containers I can do.
I was rather concerned that planting them outdoors might harm them just now. Most of the six had shown tiny little shoots of green in the store; some had shown rather impressive new growth!

Will transplanting them later upset them in any way, other than the expected resentment over being transplanted?

[matanai]

I bought three of them (wish I bought more but I don't really know what I'm doing with my yard yet). When I got home I put them in a pot, they're too big to sink all the way down but I wanted to give them somewhere to sit and get watered while I wait for the last frost date.

Two of them are doing really good, one is kinda "meh". The directions on the plastic said you're supposed to cut the tops off them? Well I haven't done that yet...

Like bifemmefatale said, you can scrape back the bark and see if the, I think it's called the procambium? is still moist, and green (or any color other than brown, and crunchy) Like peeling a sunburn off, you can see there's still flesh under there.
Usually if they're still green, but the tops are dying back, it means they're stressed and you're doing something wrong. Try and change what you're doing to fix it, pot them temporarily if you can.

[virginiadear]

Just tried the nick-and-peel on the two questionable roses, and that was very much like scraping burnt potatoes or burnt sugar off the bottom of a cooking pot. Unless there's some life left somewhere in the root stock to surprise me later, I'm going to assume these aren't going to survive.

These are going into containers at lunchtime (unless I can manage something sooner.)

[matanai]

Sounds like they probably are dead, but who knows... get them in a pot and baby them, maybe they'll bounce back. If not, it's not like you lost anything you didn't think you already lost :P

[virginiadear]

Right! I'd rather have had all six come through, but as noted above, $4.50 and tax isn't bad for a rose bush, eh?

[armygeezer]

It's those cheap roses than made me swallow the $13-$15 price for Heirloom roses. They ALWAYS end up croaking...either the first season, or the grafted part dies and you only get root stock. The subsequent growth more than made up for the price tag.
The value of the Heirloom roses is that they are grown on their own roots and always come back true if they should die back to the ground. Sorry this sounds like a rant, but I've been burned too many times with J&P roses and other bareroots at various stores.
www.heirloomroses.com

[virginiadear]

You don't sound like you're ranting: you're sharing your experience and your perspective and as long as it's not a personal attack, which I'm not considering your comment to be, then I'm fine with it.

I always thought "bare rooted" meant literally naked roots. Am I mistaken? These are in bags which have been secured around the neck of the rose, and which have some potting or growing or mulching medium around the roots.
It was a gamble I was willing to take.
If they do die away completely, I won't be heart-broken although I *will* be disappointed.
If the ones I'm planning on planting along the back fence, to deter trespassing pilferers, should come up as a different rose either now or in some future year, well, they do. They're desired for their potentially heavy, thorny canes. I'll be pleased, though, if they happen to be all the same (or a very similar) color. ;->

P.S. LOVE the cat haikus!

The others.

[armygeezer]

I just want people to learn from my mistakes! I think the medium around "bare-root" plants is just peat moss. Take a look at the website anyway. I bought 3 from them the first year I bought any and they outperformed anything I'd ever had....ever ever ever. I was sold after that. If you mail order, they come in little pots (the plants are small but don't let that deter you) and the medium is potting soil, so the roots are already started.

[virginiadear]

Ohhhh....these are beautiful!
Hopefully, later (maybe even this season!) I'll be able to indulge in one!
Right now [*rueful smile*], I'm just working on keeping these I've purchased, going.