Once you’ve decided on the type or rose you want, whether a Hybrid tea, a floribunda, climbing rose and so on, and you've further decided on your variety of choice, you can basically purchase rose bushes in two different conditions.
Bare-rooted rose bushes.
Bare-rooted roses are available only during the dormant season. Because roses are deciduous plants, they lose their foliage during the fall, and will then stay dormant (they’ll stop growing) until the following spring. As these plants are dormant, they can be lifted by the nursery and sold, pretty much as they are, ready for planting, before the dormant buds start to break into fresh growth, the following spring. These roses are available only between late fall and early spring, and they must be planted before growth starts again. These bushes have the advantages of being plentiful at this time of year, so your first choice should be available and they'll likely be cheaper too.
The other option is:
Container-grown rose bushes.
These are often bushes, that when lifted were deemed to be not a plant of good enough quality to be sold to the general public. As such, they were potted into containers and grown on for another year. As these rose plants live in a pot and produce a root ball they can effectively be bought and planted at any time of year. With the extra year's growth they should be first quality, but are likely to be more expensive as they've been more labor intensive.
It makes sense to give our roses the best start in life we can, because they could be with us for maybe 20 or even 30 years, depending on the type of rose we selected. When it comes to planting, both roses require that we dig a hole substantially larger than we might at first think. We should be looking to dig a hole about 24 inches square and 2 feet deep. This may seem excessive, but we want to refill this hole to a depth of 12 inches with a good quality loam and cow manure mixture. The cow manure should be very well rotted, never consider using fresh, as it's very acid and will burn the fine feeder roots of any plant that comes into contact with it. Now sprinkle a little bone meal into the hole and also sprinkle bone meal onto the soil ready to go back into the hole. Simply fork this through very lightly, to mix it in.
Until this point the treatment for bare-rooted and container-grown roses is the same. Have the bare rooted roses standing in a bucket of water for a couple of hours before planting just to make sure they don’t dehydrate. Now, having forked the manure/compost/loam mixture and the bone meal, back into the hole to a depth of 12 inches, for the bare rooted rose, form a small pyramid of soil and rest the rose on top of it. Spread the roots apart as much as is possible and then start backfilling the hole with the rest of the soil. Normally the bud union would be a little above the surface of the soil, and you can shake the soil between the roots to achieve this. If you live in a colder region, to ensure the rose’s winter survival, it may be prudent to plant the union at a depth of 2 inches below the final level of the soil. When the hole is filled to a depth of 6 inches, gently press the soil around the roots with the heel of your boot, making sure that no air pockets form, as any roots here will simply die off. Return the rest of the soil to the hole and once again press it in firmly with your heel. Now give the rose another good drink.
Water the container rose well before planting, but as it's in a pot it shouldn't be dry anyway. Remove the rose from its container, and check the roots over. If the roots were circling the pot, then the plant was becoming pot-bound and these roots will need to be teased out whilst disturbing the root ball as little as possible. As with the bare rooted rose, refill the hole with the manure/compost/loam mixture and the bone meal to a depth where the rose union is again slightly above the level of the soil (unless in a colder region where you can again plant the union 2 inches below this level) and then backfill around the root-ball gently pressing it down with your heel until all of the soil had been replaced. Once again, give the rose a good drink and it should happily start into growth again come spring.
Keith Berwick is a rose growing enthusiast who has been growing roses both professionally and for pleasure for over 40 years and enjoys helping others to get started in this rewarding hobby. For more great information on rose planting, visit www.rosecaretoptips.com
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