You get what you pay for?

And, these days, you're not even getting the roses J&P et al put out that way.
Now you're getting third-raters at best.

The thing I resent about them is that they give roses a bad name.

Jeri

I actually like body bag roses because they are easy to plant in a 5-gallon pot, just like you get at the local nurseries, and then they can be planted in the ground after suitable growth. It amazes me that the roses are so cheap, given the labor in growing, grafting, etc. I find some varieties that are not available at the local nursery. I rescued a Mirandy I got as a $2 special at Home Depot and now it is a glorious big bush. One of my favorites.

Except for roses grow locally by a nursery aren't they all shipped bareroot and repotted at destination?
I think it would depend more on the bagged rose you are buying than the fact it is bagged.
Suspect Sams club might be better than Joes discount dollar store.

One reason, I am sure, is they are dug by machine. The depth is preset and they are literally sheared off and out no matter how stunted their roots may be. From then on it's name 'em, bag 'em and send 'em on to the big box stores. Once they are gone from the plant, who cares? Once upon a time, they were dug by hand and more care was taken, but that costs money and cuts into the bottom line. So, dig by machine, let the chips fall where they may, and make a little extra money. Not cool, IMHO, but then nobody asked me.

A sales rep for one of the big rose wholesalers told us that the box stores get the left over dregs and the poorest quality roses.

Many of them are older varieties whose patents have expired and can be sold for less. If they are not misnamed, and you get them when they first come in, you have maybe a half a chance at getting something that might grow okay. The longer they sit unclaimed and drying out, their chances of making it go way down.

1) The risk of getting a virused plant is much higher when you buy discount plants at "marts".
2) The odds of getting a mislabeled plant are also much higher.
3) You are getting the plants that for one reason or another failed to pass as a #1 grade plant. As roseman points out, the root systems of these "discount" roses are often badly hacked and far too short.

Sometimes, as some people will happily point out, you will get a decent plant that makes a nice bush. Personally, I'd rather spend $12 or $15 to buy a well grown plant from a respected nursery and be sure that the greatest care was taken in the production of that rose. Remember, after your investment of many hours of loving care and the material needs of the plant, the initial cost of the plant itself is by far the smallest part of your investment. It makes no sense to pay $2.99 for a badly grown plant if the odds are that its not going to be a long term performer in your garden.

On the other hand, if you just like the thrill of gambling with your purchases, then go for it. Its just a couple of bucks after all, right? :-/

Sam's in my part of the country (east Tennessee) has had some of the crappiest roses I've seen. Their specials are not special and they sell them as if they were new varieties. Heck, they even imply that the rose bushes are alive and many are not when the poor bagged roses have been sitting inside without water for two months until the folks come in looking for Mothers' Day presents. Two years ago I tried to talk someone out of buying a two pack for his Mother. The light green growth had shriveled off the canes and the canes were all black. He told me his mother had a green thumb and could make anything grow. I told him he was lucky to have such a Mother, but he might want to hold onto the guarantees, just in case.

Think of buying generic canned vegetables at a story you seldom go to. You've already made a decision not to buy fresh. You can save another 50% by not buying name brands and you don't expect the olives to be perfect. But as with bagged roses, you might not get black olives, you might get green olives. (Homage to the pink rose that wasn't Sexy Rexy, to the Montezuma that wasn't, to the Queen Elizabeth that had half as many petals as it should have.)

What matters is to look them over carefully. Sometimes, not often, you can get a good one.

For example when growers plant a huge number of a particular new variety--they take the best Xthousand, and they may have Xthousand more than are pretty darn good, but that get body bagged because they over-planted. Also if the variety is particularly vigorous anyway.

My body-bag J&P own root JPJII has been excellent. It happened to look really good and be really fresh, so I bought it.

Would I buy dried-out examples that are badly scratched up? No. But if you know exactly what a healthy plant looks like, you might find a good one.

Another factor is your climate--So Cal is far more forgiving than the short summers and harsh winters of New England. A weaker plant has a better shot of esablishing itself.

Mass production. Read up on the process, and you'll get a beter idea.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Tyler Rose Industry

A sales rep for one of the big rose wholesalers told us that the box stores get the left over dregs and the poorest quality roses.

That's what I always suspected. I've always figured it was akin to buying stewing beef at the grocery store (which generally ends up being left-over bits from butchering that are edible, but tough, and not from high quality meat cuts).

I must comment. I am a big fan of bare root. Every private nursery I go to, NEVER sells bare root. They get their roses "bare root" and put them in pots and sell them for bank! I have other plans for MY bank!!

I never had a bare root purchased at a local big box store, HD, Lowes, Osh, and the list goes on.... go bad. They were all gorgeous, and true to the tag on them. Nothing was ever NOT as advertised. My first was "Brandy," and every where I live, I plant "Brandy." She is my first rose, and therefore my favorite!

Don't knock a good thing until you try it!! AND I love to propagate! By seed or cuttings............ Bring on the body bags!! I'll create a new breed from you sweet things!!

.... well, I'll try.........

Suzi

Suzi,
Not all of us are so lucky. It depends who has manufactured the roses in question. This is a comment I wrote in another thread about "body bag" roses:

A few years ago I too purchased a half dozen of those $3.00 discount roses just to see how good or bad they really were. I wanted to see for myself whether they were really just junk, or if I stood some chance that they'd make something of themselves. Most of them died shortly after leafing out. One never leafed out at all. 'Chrysler Imperial' spend year one struggling to make a couple of 12" growths, and then died the first Winter. There is a sole survivor: 'Blue Girl' which I kept in a pot in the greenhouse for a year before planting it out. It does reasonably well, although it is still a two cane wonder after four years. I would expect better of a grafted Hybrid Tea after four years, but there you have it. My experience has taught me to avoid these types of roses, for the odds are that they will not perform as well as properly grown and well cared for specimens.

(Bear in mind that I am talking specifically about the real cheapies from generic Tyler companies like Certified Roses, not the discount roses from J&P that show up in places like Costco. Let's make that distinction, at least. The odds are much better if you buy boxed J&P's and the like, especially if you get them as soon as they show up in the stores. As others have stated, the longer they sit in the store, the lower the odds are that they will grow well.)

Paul

Paul, if you can grow a cutting or a rose from seed, something with roots already there should grow better. Right? thus the body bags. AND

I have no agenda. If I like it, I'll plant it.. well, I'll get smoochie to plant it. He does love to work his muscles!! Helps his golf game........

Interesting thread. Here is my suggestion, Paul. Move out of your zone! Move here to Southern California. Those body bags do great here!!

I am with you Suzi-lol

I get the impression that some people just don't want to hear the facts about bulk grown roses. However, I admit that if its working for you, then there's nothing to fix.

Paul

Body bags do not count towards my rose budget. However, my addiction is so bad that if I am in HD or Wal-mart and happen by the display and find a rose I don't have, I'll buy it. Occasionally they survive.

I get the impression that some people just don't want to hear the facts about bulk grown roses.
Paul

*** That's about right.
What the heck. I've watched people buy DEAD roses in those boxes at Sams and Costco.
I've learned not to try to tell them that they're buying a dead plant.
They just don't want to hear it.

Jeri

I swore off this topic a few years back because I got yelled at for my comments. But, I never learn.

Rather than buy cheap crap from junk stores like Walmart, I support real rose nurseries like Heirloom, Uncommon Rose, ARE, Pickering, etc. Such nurseries are owned and operated by people like us, people who love roses. So as you count the pennies you saved, you can read the accounts of the small nurseries which are going out of business.

Ahhh, that actually made me feel good. So, go ahead, blast away.

Love,
Harry

I have to admit that I will buy "body bags", but only if it is a rose that I would not be able to get otherwise, and then I always buy in multiples since there are so many mis-marked. I find it almost impossible to believe that someone could buy these consistently and never have one labeled incorrectly. I bought 5 Moonlight Magic 2 years ago, and only 1 turned out to be the correct plant. It was a #2 at best, and struggled so much after 1 winter that I pulled it out last spring. That was $20 that I could have used for a rose I wanted from a real rose vendor.

I have no illusions about BB roses, I've only bought one, my "Not Baronne Prevost" for $2.00 at Big Lots. Turns out it's Pink Peace (surprise!...well, not really) and it pumped out blooms all last year. Virused? Maybe, but none has showed up yet.

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I think us true rose addicts will not suspend a purchase at the good vendors just because we got a cheap fix at Lowes :) The people who are mainly buying the body bags would probably never spend the money to get a decent rose (plus shipping) from the reputable sellers.

So, why are they cheap? Misnamed, possibly virused, many on death's door, but I still check them out anyway, and feel giddy if I get my fix for the price of a latte :)

Eric

Cincy City Garden,
That root system is not the typical root system of bb roses!The roots are much smaller, of the ones I've seen. I bought two for a program last year, when I unwraped them the plants only had two stubs for roots. When I got done they went into the garbage!

I've had pretty equal fail/success rates between J&P direct order, and the bagged roses at Home Depot. Although our climate probably helps the roses at HD. They all go on display immediately following Christmas, and are mostly sold out by the end of January. So we probably get the first batch of roses out of the warehouse, thus the freshest.

I still prefer to buy them in pots from the local SMALL nurseries.

Everyone who buys good roses from specialists and then ALSO buys Las Vegas (gambler) roses, raise your hands! I thought so...I couldn't be the only one. Phoenixryan is probably right in thinking that those of us in the deep south/west get those bodybags while there is still some hope for survival...if they can later make it through our summers. But that's true for the quality roses too. Better living through chemistry, that's my resolution for this year...spray spray spray!

The funniest bagged rose we ever bought (and come to think of it, it was one of the last)
was a J&P rose some years ago, from our largest local nursery.

After a few sad experiences, we decided not to take roses home unless they were at least plant-able.
So we marched out to our truck and opened the sawdust-stuffed bag, and found inside -- NO roots!
Well, I exaggerate. There WERE roots.
They were about 1.5 inches long, chopped off level across.

Marched back in to the nursery and asked for the manager.
Waved the poor mutilated thing
in his face and pointed out that it couldn't even be planted upright without
big stakes to hold the pitiful thing in place.

He said: "I can pot that up and it will grow just fine."
I said: "Fine. You just do that. I prefer a plant with roots."

We got our money back, but that was the beginning of the end for bagged roses for us.

Does anyone else remember the big bins of sweet-smelling damp sawdust that you could
dig through to find "THE" plant? The one whose lovely intact roots matched its
well-grown top?
That's what bare root roses WERE.

For us, those bins appeared as the nurseries disposed of their Christmas Trees.
The air was cold and humid,
and it seemed like "Bare-Root Time" was a continuation of the Holiday Season.

I miss that.

Jeri

I loved the sawdust bins at the nursery I worked for. And we hand pruned away any damaged roots and soaked the plants before finally potting them up when the sawdust was cleared away. At that time the annuals came in flats that we cut with a metal trowel and sold just as many marigolds, begaonias or primroses as you wanted to buy. No plastic pony packs! I truly miss opening the big boxes full of roses from weeks and putting on the tags. Talk about big bareroot plants! We never could have fit them into bags.

Jeri,
Believe it or not, there is still one nursery in my area that sells their bare roots out of barrels of damp wood shavings. You have to buy the bare roots in January or early February because after that the remainder get potted up into 3 gallon pots for sale after that point. They are like $12 if you buy em before they get potted up and about $20 after. Big plants, 12" of roots and as good as any bare roots I have ever had. Well worth the extra few dollars, IMO, and far superior to the discount Certified bag jobs from Home Despot.

Paul

Paul and Kitty -- I feel so much better, not to be alone in remembering the richness
of those rose-buying days.

Paul, I wish we still had at least one nursery here that sold that way. Alas, we do not.

Given today's choice between own-root plants in bands and small containers, and
the increasingly poor quality plants in plastic bags, there's no choice for me.
Opening a box with three or four well-grown little plants isn't quite like the days
of sweet-smelling sawdust and bare-roots, but it comes a lot closer than anything
stuffed into a plastic bag.

Jeri

We are fortunate in Santa Barbara to still have a mom'n'pop nursery who sells their bare roots from sawdust-filled bins from early January through maybe mid-February. It's La Sumida on Patterson Ave. (for those of you familiar with the area). They're old-school, in that after they clear out their Christmas trees, they take the week between Christmas and New Years off, and then the bare roots appear in the sawdust bins. They have a huge rose field which opens in March, so they pot up thousands of these bare roots back in December and January for eventual potted sale. But they still do the old-fashioned sawdust bin thing for the bare root customer, which is very cool. I have no affiliation with this nursery; it's just one of two great locally-owned nurseries that I love that are less than two miles from my house :-D

Susan

Yep, we've got one of those "old fashioned" nurseries down here also that still sells bare roots from sawdust bins. Laguna Hills Nursery in Lake Forest, Orange County (off the 5 at El Toro). BUT . . . last year they nearly went out of biz for lack of biz. So, please remember this and stop by next year (and yes, I have no affiliation with them).

Kathy