Bare Root Roses from the EuroDesert Collection

EuroDesert Roses, one of my favorite mail-order nurseries, closed earlier this year.  Health issues have now forced Cliff, the owner, to dismantle his garden and sell his amazing collection of mother plants to rose gardeners throughout the country.  His collection of over 4000 plants is one of the largest private rose collections in the world!  Many of his roses were imported from Europe, and he is the only US source.  Others are rare American roses that would have been lost to commerce without his efforts. 

So far, fourteen of Cliff's roses have made the trip from the desert of California to my garden here in central Virginia ... the most recent of which arrived via USPS earlier this week. 

The variety names, Betty and Dorothy Peach, are written on the box.

To prepare the roses for their journey, two helpers in Cliff's garden cut the roses almost to the ground, dig them up, and wash almost every bit of soil from their roots. 

The roses in this box are carefully packaged, so they make their cross-country trip without damage.

Bare-root roses are usually dug and shipped while they are dormant, in the fall or early spring. 

Each rose is packaged in its own heavy-duty bag.

With Cliff's roses, they are being dug and shipped as they are sold ... regardless of the weather.  Extreme care is taken with preparation and packaging to insure that the roses arrive at their new homes in good condition.

The roots of each rose are bagged in a draw-string kitchen bag, and the canes on top are wrapped in wet newsprint.

One would think that such treatment would damage the roses, but roses in excellent condition in the garden (like they were in Cliff's garden) can handle the stress.

Look how huge the root systems are on these roses!!

After the roses are dug and washed, they receive a quick dip in a dilute bleach solution to discourage mold growth which can happen in the hot, damp environment of their shipping box.  It works, because there was no mold at all on these beauties.

The rose on the right even started to grow new little roots!

I have no place in the garden prepared to receive these new roses, so I am planting each of them in pots for now ... BIG pots.

This pot is 18 inches across, and the rootball barely fit into it.

The pots will stay in the shade for a few weeks, until they grow some new roots, to protect them from the heat and humidity of our Virginia summer.

The roses in their new pots begin to grow pretty quickly.  This is Black Ice, which arrived here in late June.  It started to grow almost immediately after being potted, and now it's covered with buds!

Two of the roses I received in June  (Butterfly Wings and Arpeggio) were a bit slower to begin to grow again.  The canes were still green, so I knew they were alive, and I kept them watered and shaded and I waited ... new canes sprouted on them last week, and they are now growing very nicely. 

Guess what arrived yesterday?

There is a part of me that wishes I could hire a moving van and go to California and bring home a whole truckload of Cliff's roses.  The idea of splitting up and parting out his amazing garden is painful to think about.  What helps is knowing that each of the roses is going to a loving home (like mine!), and that Cliff's garden is not truly lost.  It is being spread across the country for other rose lovers to appreciate.

Thank you, Cliff.  Though you and I have never met in person, I feel as if I know you.  I treasure the roses I have received from you, and each of them has a special place in my rose collection.

If you would like to sign up to receive Cliff's email updates, which feature lists and photos of roses that are currently available, click HERE.

I'm going outside now, to unpack Bonnie Jean and get her settled into her new pot!

Happy Sunday!

Connie

(Each highlighted rose name is a link to the description page for that rose on Help Me Find Roses ... the BEST rose reference site.)

My Annual Rant About Bare-Root Roses in Bags

I ran to Walmart to buy a few things yesterday afternoon, and I saw THIS outside the main door:

Stop me if you've heard this before ...

JUST SAY NO TO ROSES IN BAGS!!

This display is full of roses with names that we remember our mothers and grandmothers growing:  John F. Kennedy, Pink Peace, Seafoam, Don Juan, and America, for example.  At $4.25 each, who wouldn't want to scoop up a whole armload and plant a beautiful rose garden at a bargain price?

Don't fall for it!  These roses are ones that would be rejected by big-name nurseries.  (Grade 1 1/2 is a lower grade than the Grade 1 that most nurseries sell.)  The growers package these in tiny bags, for cheaper shipping, with beautiful (desceptive) photos, to lure unsuspecting customers.  Gardeners (and want-to-be-gardeners) are sick of winter by now, and they come across a bright display with the promise of beautiful summer flowers.  We get sucked in by the familiar names ... I forgot to tell you, these roses are notorious for NOT being the rose they say they are on the label.

At this price, how can this NOT be a bargain, you ask?  Let's imagine that a beginning rose gardener decides to take a chance and buy some of these $4.25 roses. The roses struggle and fail to thrive. The gardener shoulders the blame, figuring that the roses aren't growing well because of something he/she must be doing wrong.  Where he/she went wrong was by buying roses that are probably not healthy in the first place. All the ground preparation, fertilizer, fungicide, and care in the world won't make a healthy rose out of an unhealthy, poorly packaged, or damaged rose.

These roses fit into these tiny little plastic bags because they have had most of their roots chopped off.  See what they look like without the packaging?  (I bought the roses in this photo a few years ago.  See, even I'm not immune to their appeal.)

For comparison, this is what a bare-root rose SHOULD look like, with a large healthy root system, and carefully pruned green canes without wax.

 

This year, for the first time, I saw Knock Out roses on the display.  People equate Knock Out with "easy to grow", so it only makes sense that they've trickled down to this level.  (If you missed my post earlier in the week about Easy Care Heirloom Roses, as an alternative to Knock Out, click HERE.)

Sometimes, it seems as if I'm spitting into the wind.  I'm one voice, against a marketing machine with pretty pictures and bargain prices.  Maybe if I do this long enough, I'll make some progress.

Roses in Bags ... The Sequel

After I had some time to digest my rant from yesterday about abused roses in bags being sold to unsuspecting customers, I realized that I left out something really, really important ....


If the roses I showed at Big Lots are poor examples, what do good bare root roses look like?



I'll show you some photos so you can see for yourself.


Here are two bagged roses, bought from Home Depot last year.  The Grade #1 on the label means that each rose has 3 or more good-sized canes.  The grade designation has nothing to do with the health or condition of the rose.

This is what the roses looked like when I removed them from the package:

See how most of the roots had to be chopped off so the rose would fit into the colorful little plastic bag?

This is what a bare root rose is supposed to look like:

Healthy canes ... profuse roots ... this rose is beautiful.

Here was my entire order before I tied it.  12 roses, carefully bundled and wrapped in a large plastic bag so they wouldn't dry out.  What a contrast!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to tell you that the bagged roses and the Canadian roses are budded onto different rootstocks. 

The bagged roses are on Dr. Huey, the most prevalent rootstock out there, which grows well in the rose production fields in Texas and California, but is lousy in the acid, clay soil here in Virginia.  You all would recognize Dr. Huey ...  he's that dark red, once blooming rose that you get when your rose's graft dies?  (I once heard it called the most popular rose in America ... and not in a good way.)

The other roses are budded onto Rosa multiflora, which is much better suited for my area.  It has a finer root structure, which is why the photos above look like a rats nest.

If you're want to buy budded roses, I highly recommend the following Canadian nurseries.  There's no problem shipping to the US, their prices are very reasonable, customer service is good, and I've already shown you the quality you can expect to receive.

Palatine Roses

http://www.palatineroses.com/

Pickering Nursery

http://www.pickeringnurseries.com/

Got Questions?  I'll be happy to answer them.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)