Big Lots?! I had no idea...

I always end up buying a few every year......they have done fine for me, I soak them first before I plant them.

I need to move.
If I found a desirable rose in good condition, I would buy a "body bag". I never have but am open to the idea.
So Ronda, what did YOU buy?

Carla

I am no longer young.
I have bought a Paul Neyron clone that came in a body bag. And I was so excited to find Paul Neyron at a cheap price. I got one years fairly good bloom out of it. Second year Rose Mosaic virus showed and the bush held its own. Third through fifth year, bloom declined, and the yellow zigzags on the leaves went from spring to year round. It hung on for eight years, but the last five were unproductive bloom wise. (Finally it died of winter.) That's a waste of seven rose years, when I could have had a productive rose in my garden, in that slot.
(My body bag rose count over the years is over fifty. Maybe two to three years of good growth, some no good years, then decline. I won't buy them again.)
All of us get older. ( it happens.)
At some point, joints ache, knees ache and our gardens should be giving us more pleasure than the work that goes into them. Our roses should be getting better year after year.
That's why I don't buy body bag roses anymore. Too much of a gamble for too little of a reward.

Paul Neyron and Sombreuil were two body bags I bought at Lowe's a few years back. Good the first year, virus showed up the next and they got worse and worse. I had to dig them up and burn them. No more body bags for me. Too much work involved - its not the money wasted I resent.

I did buy the Paul Neyron because I heard so much good about it. I dont really have room for this rose anyway so it will likely be grown in a pot. Its kind of a test for me. I want to see what his disease resistance is like. If he does well against BS and is a body bag to boot...then I might go for the real deal.

A friend of mine who isnt planning on living in her house more than a few years before moving got all of the aforementioned roses. Worth the gamble and price for roses that will be left behind.

:o)

Ronda

I did buy an own root PN and have had it for six years. It is far more productive than the one with RMV, but both require fungicides to do well. And PN is more prone to canker than many other HPs. Once canker is on a cane, that cane is a goner. So it is a high maintenance rose. And that fits its history. It came along when roses went into commerce as cut flowers, were grown in glass houses, were pampered to produce the biggest flowers they could.
Keep it free of fungus, well fertilized and well watered for the best production.

I bought a bunch of them one year and most of them turned out to be doctors. ;-)

Worth a buy if you can recognize OGR canes well enough (because a lot of them WILL be mislabeled), are able to buy them when they're still fresh and healthy (and less waxed is better at this stage), and are willing to accept the possible RMV risks involved. They haven't all turned out to be virused for me, at least, not yet. Some have been darned nice too (like the 'Charles de Mills' that was supposed to be 'Angel Face', but I walked my plants-illiterate dad through the process of picking out occult OGRs over the phone). Big Lots roses have generally been a bust for me, though - not healthy enough by the time they made it to the frozen North. Watch for creatively-renamed Austins being sold in the slimmer bags at Home Depot.

Do ya'll know if Weeks body bags also had RMV?? I am thinking that the body bags at HD were from Weeks.

Tks.

I admit it -- I can't resist a batch of bagged roses .... especially if they haven't been sitting at the store drying out and/or freezing.

I tend to concentrate on the older HTs. I picked up 6 more today: Pascali, Peace, Spartan, Queen Elizabeth, Irish Gold (Grandpa Dickson), and Oklahoma. I plan to put them, along with the others I bought a couple of weeks ago, into a mid-century-style HT garden beside our house. I figure these type of varieties are rarely seen without RMV anyway, so my expectations are set accordingly.

Connie

funny...lowe's and HD don't carry body bags around here..only walmart and planting time is next week so you think they would have them out if they were going to. They only have the bigger boxed ones.

The purchase price of the plant itself is the least significant part of your investment. As you spend countless hours caring for the plant, the feedings, sprayings, and all that love, only then will you truly know what the plant is costing you. Why risk buying an inferior specimen that you may end up investing years of care into, only to find out it was doomed to perform badly and die from the day you took it home? Not what I'd call a "bargain".

Stephan wrote ... "picking out occult OGRs" ... ROTFLM ... Warlock ...AO

I didn't check out the chain stores this year except when someone asked if Midas touch was available. I saw only Granadas at Lowe's some were huge and that rose own root from Chamblee's didnÂt do anything for me although every other rose from this company did well so far; but the weather of last year was awful in every sense so that might contribute to the subzero performance of that rose. Still, I just could not bring myself to buy any of those huge Granadas because I remembered all those roses I had to discard due to RMV. I think I have one bagged rose purchased 10 years ago that has become a stellar performer; two that are OK and I kept two cl. Peace with RMV because DH loves that rose. The others were discarded.

I agree with Ann, and with my various ailments plus DH's growing resentments of digging up, discarding and replacing roses, I rather buy a multiflora grafted rose or an own root if the source is good enough than experiment with bagged roses. I do get excited if I see some interesting varieties but then memories of roses from 11, 10 or 9 years ago come alive and I walk away.

Trospero is right - the rose itself is usually the least amount one spends on the roses: fertilizers, fungicides, labor (yes, your own) etc. add up.

Considering how greedy Paul Neyron is, I somehow doubt that it would do well in a pot. It needs very fertile soil, a lot of water and fertilizer and all that given, it does rebloom even in summer heat for me. Paul Neyron is among those rare HPs that like heat. I love that rose and I hope you got a very good specimen.

Do all bagged roses carry RMV or is there just a higher risk? What about the boxed ones?
-t

Terry,
It depends who the grower is. Boxed from J&P are likely low risk as far as RMV goes. (However, look at how FEW roots actually make it inside that tiny box....they have to chop off 3/4 of the root system to get them into the box!) If the roses are the bagged cheapies you see at BiMart and the like, (most of them from Certified) then the chances of getting a virused plant are very high.

Paul

The risk of RMV is very high in case of bagged roses because they produced cheap and sold cheap so one cannot expect the growers to purchase RMV free rootstock and RMV free budwood from UCDavis.