yeah, we call this temporary bedding 'heeling in' and is always done when a plant is, for one reason or another, not able to go into its permanent home. For sure, with bare root plants especially, it is often a safer, more reliable place than letting the plant take its chances in a pot.
I have kept a blackberry plant heeled in for 2 whole seasons without any detriment to the plant - I generally dig a trench and lay the plant with its roots in the trench, lightly covered with friable earth. Stamp it in gently to firm the soil around the roots but not too hard, water in and away you go - unless you have crazy extremes of climate with weeks of frozen ground, you will be fine.

Just did it myself today with the 60 roses (including a tea) I got from the RU sale and will be doing it with the bands I get from the Heirloom sale. We just bought a new house so I have not had time to prepare the new beds so I picked a shady spot, dug out the weeds, and planted them in for the time being. Chances are they will stay there through the winter. I am in zone 6b. Obviously I know that when I move them next spring, they will take a little more time getting settled again but nothing worse than planting a new plant.

Would it be easier to bury the pots for winter? At least that way you wouldn't have root disturbance when you pull them out again.

:-)

~Christopher

They are not really bothered about disturbance if the moving is done during winter dormancy (although obviously, those who never have a winter might have to avoid mauling the bare roots around). In the UK, between November till early March, you can rip them out of the ground, give them a rinse if you want, wave them about a bit, wrap them up and stick them in the mail....as long as the roots do not dry during a move, the roses are oblivious.

I took mine out of pots specifically to separate roots that were getting rootbound. They would have been terrible after a few more months in the pots in the ground. Might work but you might have to up-pot which would give you the same issue. If you are only waiting a few weeks before permanent planting, that might be easier though!

I'm thinking "temporary" as in 6 months to a year or so! Everything I've been reading about heeling in suggests a much shorter time frame than what I need.

Also, wouldn't it be a problem that teas don't necessarily go dormant like other roses? Our winters can be all over the place in terms of temperatures and temperature swings--that's what so hard on them in the first place.

My goal is to get the plants bigger and stronger--without having to maintain pots over the winter--before they get planted permanently in less protected places. I suspect the permanent sites will be just fine for a more mature plant, but if we have a hard winter it would be really tough for my roses that aren't even a year old.

This past winter was pretty mild for us. Yet it was my tea noisettes in their first winter that looked the worse for the wear. They've come back with varying degrees of success so far.

Maybe the better question is how hard is it on young plants to be transplanted?

My guess is that you won't be moving them next spring, but the year after that at the earliest. The whole point isn't to be moving a young plant, but a young adult plant, with enough reserves to establish well and quickly. Then you do it in the spring, just like planting a bareroot.

I know of many people who have done what you describe with not problems. Not with teas, mind you, but just the same I don't think it will hurt them at all. I move my roses around all the time and I've never lost one because of it. I usually only lose roses to winter kill here.

Agreed, Seil. Just regard it as normal planting and move at an appropriate time (winter) doing the usual bare-root thing (cutting back hard, lifting, transplanting during dormancy). If their is no effective winter dormancy, retain as much of the rootball as possible during the move.