Rogue Valley sends out nice sized plants. Northland Rosarium in WA also sends good sized plants expertly packed but their shipping starts later in the year if I recall.

I've always had good luck with Rogue Valley too :) As for the boxes they use, I have yet to receive one that hasn't been bent in half or smooshed by the time it arrives! I kept blaming people at my end, but maybe RVR need to look into changing the shape of their boxes if multiple people are having this issue. I haven't had any problems with the plants being harmed from it though, but one time I got a jar of something with a label written in Spanish dropped into my box someplace in transit (I guess they thought it fell out of my box LOL). I sent them an email that time and suggested that maybe they use more tape and included a picture of the box.

Tammy

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:350256}}

Yup, mine was similar, more stomped. P.O. had stamped it as damaged & delivery guy gave me a contact name if contents were damaged. Should have photoed it, but, hey, I had a big box of roses to tear into :)

I placed two large orders from RVR when I was in Buffalo, and did not experience the damaged boxes. Both were spring orders, and both were a mix of some busting-out-of-the-bands plants and some more "dainty" bands. All took off after growing-on in nursery pots before being planted out.

I'm thinking that if you like the size of the fall-bands (because likely they include bands that became available in the spring but did not sell), you might do well ordering your "spring bands" in the fall, and requesting delayed shipping until spring. RVR and Vintage both offer delayed spring-shipping for fall orders. I'm sure they're not the only ones, but I've ordered only from them and Heirloom (and Heirloom doesn't) and so don't know about the others.

:-)

~Christopher

I received an order from them a couple of years ago, but as Bluegirl so astutely observed, I was too busy tearing into the box to notice it's condition. The roses were fine and that's what mattered to me.....Maryl

I might have an award-winner for mishandling of RVR's boxes...I am SO thankful that they use so much tape, etc. when shipping, because if you're like me, this is how much care USPS takes of your packages...

{{gwi:350257}}

(I should add that the roses were fine, but I just about had a fit when I got the box.)

Cheers!
~Anika

Anika: OMG! you win the WORST BOX prize! How on earth were your plants unharmed (after all it looks like they did all they COULD to break them.)

Christopher: very good idea--never thought of that. Thanks! StrawberryHill has posted that she thinks some of her baby rose failures were due to too much heat. I'm trying fall orders (with bands), potting them up in 2-5 gallon pots & corralling the pots for our (usually mild) winter, as per several other posters have suggested.

I've ordered from Rogue Valley once, last year, due to recommendations here and via email. I was very disappointed in what I received. No pictures of what came as I started taking pictures of all plant purchases upon arrival shortly thereafter. Last year and this I've ordered MANY plants from sources all over the US, not all roses, so I've seen a variety of packing methods, some much better designed than others. Some really clever at protecting plants, being modular, and/or easy to unpack. Rogue Valley would rank pretty much at the bottom of all of them. The box was dented, but nothing like in Anika's picture above. What was worse was what was inside.:( Multiple VERY tiny bands with their canes taped to the inside of the box. Extricating them without damaging these very delicate canes involved surgery with scissors and *tweezers*. Also, much of the potting soil had dumped out into the box and was a real mess. Lack of thought there in packing well enough to keep the soil in. I've seen many effective alternatives (which need not be expensive). Santa Rosa Gardens uses an easily-removed net. Select Seeds a clamshell. Antique Rose Emporium uses modular boxes. Heirloom wraps the bands in paper like a burrito as do multiple other shippers to equally good effect.

Now as to the roses themselves, I've had almost 2 years to evaluate them as they arrived in January of 2011.. I am not very happy. Multiple of the clones appear to be way less vigorous and healthy than what I've gotten from other rose vendors. For example, Stanwell Perpetual was little more than a toothpick with a few leaves. It took lots of care just to get the poor thing to survive. I didn't think it would, so I ordered another Stanwell Perpetual from Heirloom. It came in July of 2011. The plant, although also a band, was many times bigger even in July than the RV plant was by that time. Both were put in 1 gallon containers (the RV one already in that size pot for months by July) in the same potting mix, fed the same fertilzer, given the same water, and placed side by side. The RV Stanwell Perpetual simply didn't grow. It was afflicted by some kind of spotty leaf crud while the Heirloom plant remained spotless. Today the Heirloom Stanwell P. has long since graduated into the ground and is 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall. The RV plant never took off, so I put it in a large container (maybe 25 gallons) with a few neighbors. It hugs the ground and is perhaps 1 foot long, stretched out. Others that came from RV at the same time include a teeny tiny Eugene de Beauharnais (still tiny and has done nothing), a good-sized Clothilde Soupert which has been a weak grower (especially compared to a very vigorous one I received from Antique Rose Emporium years ago), an average to small-sized Gertrude Jekyll (not as vigorous as she ought to be), a tiny Souvenir de la Malmaison that has been a fair to modest grower with few flowers, an average-sized Excellenz von Schubert which seems the healthiest of all and continues to grow quite well. EvS is clothed in particularly dark green foliage too.

Melissa

Bummer, Melissa. But thanks for sharing your experience.

FWIW, your experience with an order from them arriving in Jan. is similar to what I have often received from other, well-rated vendors when I took spring orders--usually for late Feb.-March. Don't know whether it's just coincidence, that plants do better growing-in in our mild fall-winter temps, or whether I'm getting more mature plants that are better established after a long summer-fall season. But this year's fall orders (Vintage, Forest Farm, Burlington, Rouge Valley) have been absolutely great plants.

Its Rogue Valley, not Rouge Valley ;-) Two very different words. :-)

Ooops! not only don't I catch miStaakes in preevw, I'mmnot correctin in 'edit Post'