They will most likely ship the date that was stated when you ordered your roses. Some may work with you if you call them, but each vendor will have different policies so be prepared to deal with early roses if they cannot help you. Last year I had a similar situation in that spring was 3-4 weeks behind schedule in my area. Fortunately there was an earlier discussion here on GW about holding roses in tubs of water. When you get bare root roses, you are frequently told to soak the roots for at least 12-24 hrs. before planting them to rehydrate them but not to soak them for more than 3-5 days. Several people here on this forum said that they had successfully kept bare root roses for many weeks standing in tubs of water before planting them. So last spring I ended up keeping about 2 doz. bare root roses with their roots submerged in water, some about 2 weeks & others close to 4 weeks, before I was able to plant them. They all survived & grew very nicely in my garden last summer. How I kept them was, submerge the roots only & keep them in a low light corner of my garage where the temp is cool but not freezing.

This post was edited by wirosarian on Sun, Mar 23, 14 at 11:59

Don't worry about it. Bareroots should be planted as soon as the soil is workable. If the soil isn't workable when they arrive, they can sit and soak in buckets for a week or two at least.

Personally, I'd much rather have the roses in hand, ready to plant when possible, than watch the thermometer rise helplessly. It should be cold when they are planted. They should be snowed on some. Otherwise they were planted too late and have a hard time establishing.

Okay, well that should work out fine then. I had read that you shouldn't leave them in water more than a few days, so if that's not the case, then I shouldn't have a problem I guess, unless the ground doesn't thaw until May! [g]

Ideally, I do have to reorganize a bed, move plants, and do some soil prep before planting the roses, so I hope the ground will cooperate.

Thanks!

I have soaked a rose for at least a month (it got shoved aside and forgotten) and it did just fine.

Mad, I don't understand your reasoning on planting them when it's still so cold. Usually I do get bare roots the first of April and plant them through out the month. I've never had a problem with that. I know I've gotten bagged bare roots as late as June in clearance bins and they've done fine as well.

Two reasons.

For several years (too many, IMHO) we had a serious heat wave hitting in April. Trying to nurse newly planted bareroots through a week of 80-90 degree weather is no fun. Even worse is dealing with bareroots traveling in that weather. By far the easiest way with dealing with that unknown is to get the roses ASAP, so it isn't as much of an issue.

The other reason is local gardening culture. Mounding bareroots, or much other aftercare isn't done. Most things can be plopped in the ground and ignored until August, when they may need a watering or two. If you plant bareroots early, they don't need mounding, so you skip that, and skip unmounding. It's just much easier.

Another aspect of that, is the annual squeals implying that nothing can be planted before the last frost date. Here, that is late enough that establishment becomes a real problem for any perennial plant if it is left that late. I've known too many people who have soaked bareroots 'until it is warm enough', then wonder why they have such bad luck with them.

The reality is the whole system is designed for bareroots to be planted early. It can be done later, but it requires more skill and work.

I can seriously understand your concern. You've already been reassured properly I think and I hope you feel that way, but I want to add some references.

First, that soft spoken man, P. Allen Smith, has a good discussion on his website:

Gardening Zones and Frost Dates

The trisection of frost is interesting. Here in Florida we learn just how pertinent time at temperature is because we will freeze, but usually only for a very few hours.

But I agree with mad_gallica's post that 28F is the traditional concern.

Here: Planting perennial plants in 'early spring' in Zone 6 NJ

You can see that Burpee's last frost dates are significantly later, since they are primarily concerned with ANNUAL veggies and flowers, i.e., what P. Allen Smith terms a "light freeze."

Here: Growing Zone Information

It is also interesting that P. Allen Smith's website lists an entire month range as "the average date." Picking the midpoint, the Zone 6 average would be around the middle of April. Adjusting later for 6a would put it toward the end of the month. So, on average, you and your roses seem to be sitting pretty!

You may (or might not) find the ground workable before you know it.

I hope the links are helpful.

Best wishes for a beautiful spring.

Does anyone have an opinion of heeling in vs. soaking? This might be a sill question, but what about putting them in a refrigerator? I recall a nursery in CA telling me that they put the bare roots in cold storage for winter. We have a spare empty fridge.

My own experience supports the notion that the earlier the better and I requested delivery for the first week of April. But we still have some serious snow cover and a lot of work to do to dig some new beds.

Well, I searched for more information - to ensure that my old-fashioned understanding of the term "heel in" was correct.

I found this:

Steps For Heeling In Plants

Step 1: Soak

Me: if I can (and am going to expend the energy to) dig a trench, then I can also dig a planting hole.

I vote for soak.

I have never heeled in a rose. The ones that I have kept in a refrigerator are bareroots that came from warmer places that stopping shipping bareroots at the end of February. So that meant keeping them somewhere for about 6 weeks of freezing temperatures. It isn't a trivial undertaking since the refrigerator has to be kept between about 30 and 35 degrees. Since refrigerators don't tend to have thermometers, it means putting a min/max thermometer in the refrigerator, then checking it every day to make sure things are going well. At the same time, the bag the roses are in has to be checked to make sure the humidity is at a reasonable level. The last time I did it, the refrigerator had 50 roses. Unpacked, they took up about 10 5 gallon pails. Enough space that they would have had a significant impact on my garage.

I'm worried that I will feel guilty if I don't share this:

When I soaked mine for over a week, the buckets were outside in partial to mostly sun if it wasn't going to freeze that night.

One problem using a refrigerator to store bare root roses is that almost all refrigs. built in the last 30+ years have an automatic defrost cycle that essentially makes them a dehydrator. You need to keep the bare rose roots in a high moisture environment to survive. I agree with sandandsun "if I can dig a trench, then I can also dig a planting hole" so heeling in not my choice.

I should have mentioned a circumstance that is unrelated to the unworkable frozen ground aspect. For the last few years our landscaping has involved heavy machinery. Much of our property is construction fill - mostly huge hunks of granite and not much native soil. So we have been excavating new beds and getting truckloads of good soil. Some years we haven't been able to coordinate the digging with the arrival of plants, so I have resorted to the heeling in method - using the fresh piles of soil. No trenches required. I have never had to bury the bare-roots for more than two weeks, but even in that short amount of time I see a great deal of new root growth which I am loathe to disturb.

Several of the nurseries I use have provided the recommendation of heeling in when one is unable plant right away. None had suggested simply soaking (other than the usual "soak overnight" instructions). I am thrilled to have learned this advice here. This will be much easier and as I mentioned, I've always felt that it can't be good to disturb the tender new roots, which is unavoidable when transplanting from soil.

I got my order from Reagan back in February like they said. Roses unlimited has delayed their shipment due to the weather. It was supposed to ship out last week, but didn't.

Roses Unlimited sells potted roses as we know.

The concern here is only about bare roots. Although I've never ordered freshly dug bare root roses, there are some specialty nurseries that dig and ship bare root plants - usually shrubs and trees, on demand. I would NOT advise extended soaking for them.

The extended soaking discussed above applies specifically to roses that were dug in the fall and kept in cold storage for spring shipment which is the industry norm.

Freshly dug or potted roses, I (personally) would schedule for delivery near the last perennial frost date.

An exception to all of this would be roses that were greenhouse grown - like Roses Unlimited. These I would schedule nearer the last ANNUAL frost date.

This post was edited by sandandsun on Tue, Mar 25, 14 at 15:01

So I ordered a Day Breaker rose from spring hill nurseries and received it today but bare root! I'm new at gardening and just have no clue what to do with it. So I guess from all the reading I've done I'll soak it to the graft for 24 hrs then is it ready to be planted outside I'm the ground? We're already warm here in Dallas with the temps getting in the 90s by Friday so not sure if it's ok to plant or not and if so is there anything special I need to do to it? I've read a few of you guys mentioning mounding; what is that?
Thanks and sorry for the ignorance
Elce