21,402 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Thanks Jerijen, Diane & Dan. It make a lot of sense Jeri after you explain it in that perspective. I guess I never thought about genetics in plants. I only think about it in human terms. I guess I took it for granted. I always assume that the seedlings would be "similar" in appearance to the parents and would inherit any mutations as well. I guess in modern terms, cuttings would be its "clone" if you want the exact plant. Makes perfect sense now. It makes more sense now after many readings that refer to when hybridists wanted to "create" new plants through its "seedlings" by pollination. Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

OH I hope they sell Chihuly here in WA at the box store, that would be a find! Got Marmalade Skies there last year, but they wanted full nursery price. I got it anyway.
BTW- your Gigi is SO cute! I hope she continues to do well and bring you joy.

Well, perhaps I've jumped the gun but I've pruned 3 of my well-established roses, one old Hybrid Tea & 2 White Meidillands. I've noticed that my Rugosas haven't broken dormancy yet but everything else has. I live in coastal W.WA, hope I don't regret my early pruning but they seemed to need it, breaking out everywhere.

Hi to all fellow western Washington rose lovers! I have to admit- I got the itch too!
Red Intuition was leafing and I had a Neil Diamond and Veterans's honor waiting to be planted.
It may be too early and as Morz8 said, we might still get a freeze. Yes I know better but couldn't help it!
Perhaps I'l regret it later, but let's cross our fingers we'll continue on with this mild winter and feel lucky we're not back east.

Hi there, welcome back to the forum. It is nice to meet you. I wish you all the best on your new job. Unfortunately I don't live close to you or to your zone but I think it is nice for you to offer your roses for people who wants to grow them. Please let us know how things are in the near future, especially in the new area where I hope you will still grow roses. Good luck.


Water them very well the day before you move them. On the day dig your holes in the new spots first. Then dig them out and move them quickly to their new homes. You can use a wheel barrow or drag them on a tarp to so you only have to handle the root ball as little as possible. As Jackie said water them in very well and keep them watered, but not soggy wet, for the first week. Don't panic if there is some wilt at first, that's fairly normal, but they should perk back up within a few days to a week. Good luck and let us know how it goes when you do it!

Sister Elizabeth is beautiful and I love its cool lilac-pink color but it may do better if you can provide some afternoon shade. Still, worth trying even without the shade, since mine was planted in what is probably the hottest area of the garden near large, heat-reflecting boulders and that's not a fair test for any rose. I moved it later but then it was in too shady a spot. I hope to try it again some day. Young Lycidas is said to be a very unruly bush which grows every which way. I wouldn't know since mine hasn't grown much at all. The flowers are gorgeous, though. I'm now trying Charles Rennie McIntosh which is also supposed to be a rich lilac-pink color but it's just a small own-root plant at this point.



One thing you want to do with a new bush is to cover the canes and pile it high over the canes. The rose has no roots on it yet. It has no way to replace the moisture lost. The mulch helps protect the canes.
The other thing you can do is to use Wiltpruf.
Dan Keil
ARS Q&A

I've started using cardboard,too,and am finding it very helpful,though i do see Jeri and Kim's point.Here in Tuscany the pattern tends to be for rain in autumn /winter, and a very dry spring/ summer,so what I am aiming for is to get as much as possible of my garden covered up with cardboard BEFORE THE SOIL DRIES OUT. Last year I found that the cardboard, when covered by organic matter, broke down extremely fast; I had to re-mulch two or three times at least. This year, my ideal aim would be to do my first mulching with the main idea of conserving the moisture. This will rot away too quickly to be of much help once bindweed season really gets underway in summer,so I'll have to re-do the whole thing then. But my main goal is to try to basically prevent my soil from drying out for as long as possible into the summer months,and to try to get control of the bindweed and some of the worst, most aggressive perennial weeds,and I don't think I could do that without the help of the cardboard..


I'll have to check the Rogue Valley site again. I was under the impression that it was a lot more expensive than in Mariannese's experience (though the fact that it was a group order, with shared expenses, may well have helped cut down the price). And I admit I am very dubious about how well the plants could deal with the long shipping process, etc. I remember the nursery stating clearly that they could make no promises or guarantees,so part of the issue is not only it's simple do-ability, but whether it's actually worth doing. Sure, I'd love to have a Peggy Martin, a Climbing Pinkie, etc, in my garden, but I'd want healthy, thriving ones,not weaklings that would never really take off!

If you are interested in a very detailed overview, you may want to order "Combined Rose List" which lists many, many international as well as national nurseries, and the roses that they report offering as of December 2014. Contact numbers, and status of shipping (whether they do it or not) are also there.
Here is a link that might be useful: Combined Rose List


post entry quarantine required for all EXCEPT Italy, Australia, Bulgaria Canada and New Zealand.
There might be a business opportunity here for well capitalized nurseries in those countries. You could set up a subsidiary in Bulgaria, where, I believe land and costs are still not prohibitive. I am so happy with my 'Titian'; I would like to have more from Mr. Reithmuller--hope I got the name right. I am sure CA and FLA gardeners would love some of those Australian teas and some of the Italian and Spanish HTs bred for warm climates and as for us in the colder zones--I pine for the European albas, both Karin Schade's found albas and the new hybrids as well.. I note that albas always sell out for those nurseries which still offer them in the USA.


Thank Christopher, I was. I am not that familiar with the PNW, but I have rose friends there and I don't think they have pruned yet.
It's really up to you. I normally get roses leafing out at this time of year because we do get mild winters (even though we get frosts and freezing temps). Especially the roses that get a lot of sun. As I've said, every time I don't prune because it's already leafed out, I regret it. And I usually have to prune a lot after the first flush.
And we are all victims of the weather. In 2007 we had a very warm winter and my roses were almost fully leafed out in early March. I did prune some. But many were full of buds or in bloom at the end of March. Then we had a disastrous hard frost on April 7th and 8th, Easter weekend. Everything was destroyed. All new growth was killed and the damage on some roses went back to the graft. I also lost my hydrangea blooms and almost my Japanese Maples and Gardenias. Some of the roses never recovered. There was probably nothing I could have done to prevent it, but after that year, I did wait until March to prune, no matter what was going on in my roses.
It depends on where you live and what type of spring you normally get. If you can get frosts in early spring, then delaying pruning may be a good idea.




Hope you get some local responses. Otherwise, you could try one and let us know! From the pics on HMF, I am afraid that the blooms look like ones which ball in my garden, and we are way less humid than Florida.
Jackie