Andi ...
>>>>I don't understand how anyone could walk past a display of hybrid teas, floribundas and grandfloras without a passing glance.
The reason they pass by is that they have probably killed a lot of those roses. Most people do not know how to prepare a stressed rose for planting.
The roses in the big box stores whether or not they have been potted up into containers or bagged are extremely stressed roses, but they can be saved if you treat them differently than the instructions you will find on almost all rose nursery sites and in rose books.
It's all about growing roots first. Those roses are the rejects from the harvest and are not sent to good gardening centers. They were harvested the same way as "good" roses, but in processing they are separated out and their roots are further chopped back to fit the packaging. They don't have good anchor roots and no feeder roots. The top growth is too large to be supported by the root mass they do have and will always look lousy. Even when the top growth looks good, it won't look good for long because the root mass simply cannot support it. Cutting back the top growth and growing roots first is how you save a stressed rose.
Whether you plant the rose into a container or directly into the ground, the goal should be to grow roots first, even with good quality roses. When you water, you only want to water enough to keep the root mass moist because it's easier for the rose to push the small feeder roots through moist soil than through mud.
The rose will grow it's anchor roots to go deeper into the rose hole, but the plant will not take up nutrients from those roots. At the same time, the rose will be growing the feeder roots near the surface of the planting hole. Those new feeder roots are easily burned by any fertilizer, so you just water the plant until you see new top growth. That tells you the root system is working and the plant is putting up that top growth so that it can feed itself with photosynthesis. In roses, the photosynthesis process that provides food for the plant is not fully active until day temps reach 70F, so cutting back the top growth is not going to hurt the plant. The new top growth also tells you that the root system has developed sufficiently for the rose to pull moisture up to the top growth.
Once the rose tells you the root system is working sufficiently to support more top growth, you can start feeding it. I prefer to use chemical foods, highly diluted, at this stage because the nutrients are more readily available to the plants. As the plant gets stronger, using organics is fine as long as you remember it takes time for the soil bacteria to break the organics down into a form the plant can use.
I make sure that my mulch doesn't touch the crown of the plant because moist/wet mulch can cause canker. That's the last thing a stressed rose needs.
It doesn't really matter a whole lot if the roses were over watered or under watered while they were in the big box store ... nature doesn't water on time nor does it always water sparingly. Roses are genetically programmed to survive. What you are seeing as a stressed rose is simply the signs that the root mass cannot support the top growth.
The only roses I have not been able to save are those that have been over watered for a long period of time. Roses found in abandoned homesteads and cemeteries where they did not get supplemental watering are easily saved. Roses naturally go dormant if they do not get the moisture needed to support their growth. They stay in that dormant stage until they get water. Those that have been consistently over watered don't have any feeder roots because they have rotted away.
@Paul2032, Paul, put up a great thread with before and after photos of how a good nursery handles the top grade roses they receive. You will notice that they are "growing roots first".
The thread "Roses in containers at a good Utah Nursery" in
Roses forum
Utah-Nursery/
I don't plant anything around a new rose until it is fully established. It's not because roses can't handle root competition, but because I don't want to mess with the new roots the rose is growing. Species roses are forest edge plants. They can handle root competition. I've got a species rose volunteer .. probably a bird drop ... growing in a dense juniper bed up on my slope.
When you remove a rose from a container, the easiest way to get it out with most of the root mass in tact is to use your trowel, a shovel, a hammer ... whatever ... and knock the sides of the container to loosen the root ball from the sides of the container. If you are planting into a large hole, putting a board across the hole and emptying the container onto the board and then tipping the board and sliding the plant into the hole helps you keep the root mass to hold together very well.
In Europe, Jack Harkness recommended planting a bare root rose so that the roots were spread across the planting hole. This gives the plant more root surface to grow feeder roots. The thing is, that today, it is hard to buy bare root roses with the kinds of roots we used to be able to get a couple of decades ago.
It's all about good drainage and growing roots. This is not climate specific.
Most hybrid teas and floribundas are hardy to cold zone 6. It depends on the lineage of the rose. The roses that have more china and tea in their lineage are more "tender" and are not genetically programmed to go sufficiently dormant to survive the colder winters.
@Joannabanana, Joann, wrote an excellent article about protecting modern roses in an even colder zone than yours:
http://garden.org/ideas/view/J...
You are not limited to just Canadian roses.
Smiles,
Lyn
