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| The rose moving season is dawning, not without intense apprehension from me since I can count, using a hand's worth of fingers, the times I have attempted this risky venture. Feeling emboldened by the unlikely gallica rescue I performed a couple of years ago, I am embarking on the digging, moving and replanting my roses (although, as the ground preparation is slow going, it is going to have to happen over a few seasons). Naturally, I have read heaps of advice and am not totally without confidence but, there are a couple of older and larger roses I am not going to attempt - a source of regret since one is my beloved moyesii. So, just wondering, what is the oldest, most humongous specimen you have dug up (such little words for such an epic process)...and relocated. Obvs, the query is 'replanted', not replan..........ran out of space (like I so often do). |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Largest rose by far replanted was the rambler Debutante, which is now happily growing up a cherry tree instead of the large arbor it was on. I have had great success with big roses -- wait until they are dormant or nearly so, cut them back hard so the top growth can be supported by the root system, and keep well watered they should do fine. |
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| Hi! We have successfully moved a 5-6 ft, 5 year old mutabilis rose in the middle of summer in Texas. The key for us was in cutting it back, trimming a lot of the foliage and smaller sucker branches and constant (twice a day, in our heat) watering. Our rose has now been at its current loc for three years and is bigger than it was before. It can be done. Good luck! |
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| A decade old, first year introduction bare root of Taboo which grew as if it was mainlining the septic tank! It was HUGE. My kid sister and I dug around that monster (even after cutting it back) for over an hour and finally had to pry it out of the ground with a 17#, 7' long pry bar. It filled the back well of her Odyssey. It required a huge hole in her front yard, but it's been eating her lawn for the past nearly 15 years. Kim |
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- Posted by mariannese 5b (My Page) on Mon, Oct 7, 13 at 16:36
| We moved a full-grown Rosa helenae hybrid, 10 ft tall, but of course we cut it down to 3 inches before tackling it. It didn't notice the move. |
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| Hmmm, 10 year old, 10feet tall roses. What size of rootball did you have? Did you manage to keep it intact - I have usually just shook the excess soil off and bare-rooted my (few) transplants....but obviously, nothing comparable in size. Were you moving grafted roses...or own root? There is a noticeable difference since laxa rootstock tends to throw a long single root which often decides to travel horizontally through the soil. |
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| We had a Fimbriata growing on multiflora rootstock that was about to take over an otherwise mannerly rose bed. The mass was about four feet across at the base, many canes, many, many canes. We tried digging it out, and it didn't budge. We dug deeper, about two and a half feet down and it didn't budge but we found some three inch diameter roots. We got out DH's 3/4 ton pickup truck and a metal chain that had been our 14T sailboat's anchor chain. We pointed the pickup truck down hill. Third try, it ripped the rose and some of the roots out of the ground. We replanted it back along the fenceline by the orchard. It's happy there but a bit more mannerly as it's now in clay. SOme of it is still on multiflora as it puts up one or two multiflora canes each year. It's still reaching eight feet in height and is back to being four feet across at the base. |
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- Posted by mariannese 5b (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 13 at 4:00
| The helenae is definitely grafted, the usual thing in commerce over here, but on what rootstock I don't know. I don't remember the size of the rootball but knowing my husband and me I don't think we bothered too much about keeping it intact. It was large enough to support the much reduced top. |
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| Canmanula, before I got rid of all my roses except Ragged Robin - the only rose I can stand - I made what you call "epic process" into a way of life. Whenever the mood would take me, and take me it did every so often, I'd dig up this or that rose for moving to a new spot or for repotting on its way to a new home. In less than 2 years RR got moved more than half a dozen times, including in the sizzling Israeli July-August. So have several Icebergs, which were as tall as myself: slightly more than 5 feet. 2 Gartendirektor Otto Linn, which had the temerity of developing an over 6-foot diameter were blithely pruned, unceremoniously pulled out and dumped in pots, where they lost no time in leafing out again before going to a more deserving gardener than myself. Roses are very difficult to kill. So don't leave your beloved Moyesii behind. I looked it up on HMF a minute ago and it's just my kind of rose, too. What's 8 feet? Chop off its head and some of its feet and dump it in a pot. If my experience is anything to go by, roses start singing for their supper once they find themselves in a pot. Cruelty pays! Go for it! Good luck with your new place!
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| Grief - I dunno what to say - some of these moves! I do feel somewhat emboldened after rescuing some unidentified rugosa from the plot next to me. Although it was 6 years old or so, it had never got very big since it had almost immediately vanished into a bramble patch and it was only the threat of the council rotavators which encouraged me to attempt to replant what looked like a very small and unpromising root. Nevertheless, I dumped it in a hastily dug hole and threw some water in (I dread to imagine the size of pot I would need for the moyesii) and remarkably, it survived. Going along with the difficult to kill idea (although I have not found it so as my sad little shrivelled Hot Chocolate testifies), I am going to attempt the helenae, Aimee Vibert and Darlows Enigma in the next week or so....and see what transpires. |
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