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.