Planting Roses
Whichever you decide here’s how to plant your roses:
Hole Size
In an ideal world - dig the hole twice as wide as the roots are wide. The new roots will grow quickly out into dug soil.
Dig the hole deep enough - so the bud union can go down 6 inches below the soil line for northern planting or 2 inches deep for traditional planting. Roots grow outward so don't worry too much about enriching the downward hole.
The objective is to give a well-aerated soil that will be easy for the baby roots to penetrate.
Extra info
If you are a real beginner and unsure of how deep to dig the hole, some experts recommend that when planting roses you measure the rosebush from the bud union to the root tips (if it is a bare-root plant) or to the bottom of its container (if it is container grown),then add a few extra inches to allow for the distance the bud union should be below ground.
Once you know how deep the hole should be dug, you can check your progress by setting a stick across the top of the hole and measuring down to gauge the hole's depth.
Personally, if I’m not sure, I just hold the rose into the hole until I get to the right depth. Using sticks and measuring tape etc is far too much work for me when I'm planting roses
Planting Roses and Pruning
Before you set the rose in its hole, examine its top and, if it is bare-root specimen, its roots. Prune off any broken roots.Also, prune any damaged canes back to fat, healthy-looking buds. If the plant is in poor condition - perhaps a hand-me-down from a friend's garden or the only available specimen of some desired variety - the few viable buds may be far down on the canes, near the bud union.
Perhaps pruning back to this good wood will leave only a few inches of cane, but go ahead and make the cuts. Without drastic pruning, the tops may continue to die back, eventually killing the entire cane.
Do not prune healthy roots or tops when planting roses.
This advice is often given to beginners by those who don’t know what they are talking about. Prune damaged wood or broken roots but never good tops or roots. As an aside, this type of pruning when planting roses was common practice a few years ago and many rose growers still recommend it… contrary to what modern research tells us about transplanting woody plants.
Planting Roses Deep versus Shallow Planting
The difference in planting roses is that deep planting puts the bud union (where the top canes swell up where they meet the root – the grafted area) down six inches deep and the more traditional growers put the bud union down two inches deep.
Planting Roses when Dormant or In-Leaf
If you
are planting a
dormant rosebush, one with no leaves and
no swollen buds on its canes, you can set it and fill in around its top
with enriched soil. Dormant buds can be buried without injury. When
they begin to grow, they will become young shoots emerging from the
ground to form strong new canes. Note that enriched soil is top soil
from the planting hole mixed 50:50 with compost.
H
owever, if the rose is already in leaf or its buds are swelling, you can still plant lt the bush at the proper depth, but you cannot completely fill in the hole until the end of the season, when the canes are dormant.
Burying leaves and emerging buds can quickly kill a plant.
My approach with leafed-out roses is to fill the hole only to the level of the bud union. Let the rose grow until the end of the season, then finish filling in the trench in the fall when the plant is dormant.
As an alternative, you can plant the rose in a shallower hole and enjoy it all summer. When it becomes dormant. dig it up and replant it with the bud union 6 inches deep to ensure winter survival.
A third option is to grow the rose in a decorative pot all summer, than plant it in the fall.
Planting Roses that are Bare-Root or Container-Grown
Roses are usually shipped or sold in one of three different ways: They may be bare-root, they may be in a plastic pot or they may be in a fiber container. Any of these arrangements can produce beautiful roses, but each must be handled differently when you are preparing the rose for planting.
Planting Roses from Bare-Root Stock
Bare-root roses, those sold with no soil around their roots, are common in the mail-order trade because they are light and relatively inexpensive to ship. The roses are dug from the producer's fields in the fall and either sent directly to the growers or garden centers or kept in cold storage and shipped in the spring.
Some authorities recommend that before you plant a bare-root rose, you soak it in a pail of water for a few hours to rehydrate its roots. While this is not bad advice, the practice seems unnecessary. I have found no difference in vitality or longevity between bare-root roses that have been soaked before planting and those that I have not soaked but have heavily watered or "puddled in" after planting.
If you decide to soak bare-root plants, (it can't hurt) don't leave them in water overnight, or they may drown for lack f oxygen. Two to three hours is plenty of time to wet the roots.
Whether the rose is soaked or not, never allow the roots to dry out.
Keep plants in the shade, wrapped in a damp cloth, until they are ready to be set out. If they dry out, even for a few minutes, the delicate feeder roots will be damaged. I take more care with roses than almost any other plant in our nursery to ensure that the roots are continuously damp.
Another popular but equally unnecessary bit of advice regarding bare-root roses is that the roots be spread over a cone-shaped mound of soil at the bottom of the planting hole. No rose that was planted in our gardens was amenable to spreading its roots in any specific shape, never mind uniformly over a cone of soil. Ignore any advice like this.
Bare-root roses go into the ground in whatever contorted shape they arrive at our gardens. Simply make the hole large enough so that no roots are bent or forced in unnatural directions.
Fit the hole to the plant, not the plant to the hole.
Planting Roses in Plastic Pots
A rose that's sold in a plastic pot from a reputable nursery usually means that the plant has been in the pot for at least 12 months. It is common nursery practice to put up bare-root stock in plastic containers and keep it for about a year before selling it, at which point the plant is referred to as container-grown stock.
This potting up and holding process give the roots plenty of time to become established in the planting medium, which means there should be very little transplant shock when the rose is set out.
Make the planting hole about twice as wide as the pot so the rose's feeder roots can grow into loosened, aerated soil. Carefully remove the rose from the pot to keep its root ball intact, and ease it into the planting hold at the appropriate depth. If the rose is difficult to remove from the pot, tip it upside down and pull up on the pot while tugging down on the stem of the rose. Soaking the soil until water runs out the bottom of the pot will also help loosen the plant
Unfortunately, transplanting from a plastic pot is not always a smooth operation. The rose may have been in the pot for only a few months or weeks, giving the roots little time to become established. (The more responsible nursery practice, if the roses are going to be sold shortly after they are potted up, it to use fiber containers.)
If, when you remove the rose fro its container, the soil falls away and you are left with a bare-root plant, there are a few techniques you can follow to minimize transplant shock.
Set the rose in the ground as soon as possible and water it thoroughly. If the plant is leafed out, spray the foliage with a waxy substance called antidesiccant to reduce moisture loss through the leaves.
You may also want to complain to the garden center that the rose was not container-grown and ask for reimbursement if it dies.
A second possible problem with container-grown roses is, in a sense, the opposite of the first. The rose may have been in the container too long and may be out-bound, with a tangle of roots completely encircling the container. This is not a difficult problem to solve.
Separate out a few of the larger roots or make several vertical slices with a knife down the sides of the root mass. Cutting a few of the smaller roots will "wake up" the plant, which will send out vibrant new replacement roots into the surrounding soil.
Planting Roses in Fiber Containers
Rose from garden centers are often sold in fiber pots. Garden centers purchase bare-root roses from large growers and pot them up a month or two before offering them for sale. Gardeners have to be careful with these fiber container roses, because their root development is just beginning. Upsetting this tender growth can slow the plant' establishment and subsequent flowering. Planting roses in fiber containers is very easy, because the roses don't need to be removed from the pot.
Once the planting site is prepared, cut off the bottom of the fiber container so the roots can grow out into the moist soil.
Next, set the pot in the hole. Lay a stick across the top of the hole and measure down from the stick to ensure that the bud union is at the proper depth. Or, just guess at the proper depth. If you guess, you'll be moving the pot in and out if you guess wrong and one of those times, the soil is going to fall out the bottom of the pot and you'll be left with a bare-root rose for rose planting. (you just might not want to be left like that)
If the rose is partially leafed out, final rose planting cannot occur until it goes dormant in the fall. No buds or leaves can be covered with soil. The rose can be put in the hole and soil backfilled to the first swollen bud or leaf.
At a shallower planting depth, the rim of the container may protrude above the ground. If it does - and this applies when setting out any plant in a fiber pt - break off the rim so the top will be covered with soil when the hole is filled.
Otherwise, the rim may act as a wick and draw moisture from the sides of the pot and from the soil around the roots. If the sides are dry, the fiber material will not break down very quickly and will impede small feeder roots from working out of the container and into the surrounding soil.
After you set the pot in the hole while planting roses, make a half-dozen vertical slices in the sides. This will enable water to move through, carrying bacteria that will help degrade the pot. In a short time, the roots will be established and the rose will be on its way to blooming..
When planting roses, you have to be very careful when leaving a rose in a fibre pot. It will usually require more water than a bare root or container grown plant. Be extravagant with the hose when planting roses.
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