I have used this method successfully for years. After you receive and soak your bareroot, dig the appropriate hole and plant it as deep as you want, build a little moat around the plant for watering. Water deeply. Then cover/mound the rose completely with damp potting soil, compost or dirt. Keep the cover on until the rose starts to leaf out, and then gradually wash it off. To water until the rose leafs out, stick the hose under the covering to near the stem and water slowly. If some of the covering comes off, recover. These are the instructions I got from the old Edmunds when I first started planting bareroots and it always works for me.
Good luck
Kathy

The problem with a plastic bag is that on a cold but totally sunny day, that plastic becomes an oven and would cook the rose.

If using bags, plastic or paper (preferred) put a hole in the bottom of the bag. I have used plastic, I made sure to make a tent by putting stakes in the pot to hold the plastic off of the canes.

I'm a wuss, I don't want to do the plastic bag. This is Texas and next Thursday it's supposed to be 92 degrees, OMG. My newly planted bare roots would be par boiled. I just plant, water and mulch well. So far the ones I planted last June are 5 ft high.

The rule of reason applies to these things. Mounding bareroots isn't holy writ. In general, the later in the season your bareroot arrives, the greater the necessity to mound. The reason is that you are starting with a more dried out rose to begin with. These plants were dug up in October and have been in (more or less cold) storage ever since.

So adjust the advice to mound to your climate and timing. For example, if I manage to get bareroots in January, when we have short days and lots of rain, I don't mound at all. If I get them in late February or later, I always mound with compost or compost mixed with soil because March is always windy. Wind without rain will kill a bareroot within a couple of days.

If your climate provides you with ample spring rainfall and humidity and little wind, mounding may be unnecessary. If your climate is already hot and/or dry, by all means, mound with soil, which retains water better than compost.

I figured out a good trick a few years ago. Get 5-6 sheets of newspaper. Fold it to make a collar that will fit around your planted bareroot after it is planted, usually several inches. Then staple it together and put it over the plant and fill with compost, leaf mold or whatever. It will hold the mulch in and is biodegradable later. It prevents the soil from falling away from the plant. I do this to bareroots when I pot them up also. Works great.
Judith

I would think if you have the roots in the ground you shouldn't have to worry about the canes drying out. Most of the moisture is lost through the stomata in the leaves and they close those when they sense it is too windy to conserve moisture. If you don't have leaves, should be no problem, i believe you are just overthinking this one, and worrying too much!lol.

Len511, in my experience, I have to disagree. I have planted bareroots and watered them a lot and still have had canes dry out. Covered are all of them now until they have leafed out.

I've never planted bare root, so i stand corrected!

I would think if you have the roots in the ground you shouldn't have to worry about the canes drying out.

*** Ah Len -- You need to come out and spend a few days in our Santa Ana windstorms.

These dry winds come right out of the desert, and they'll suck the moisture out of about anything.
(Sales of skin moisturizers and saline nose sprays rise when the Santa Anas blow.)

In such conditions, I've had best results building a mound using compost or fine mulch.
The material can be piled right up to the top of the canes, and will hold moisture.
Once the rose really starts to grow, you can gradually wash the mound away.

Jeri

What type of mulch would you recommend for fine mulch? I think I will opt for soil or mulch, not the plastic bag. The newspaper sounds like a good idea too.

When you say to mound with soil, I assume you mean potting soil, not my hard muddy clay, unamended.

Potting Soil would be fine. Cheap potting soil is fine.
We often used Bandini GROmulch -- tho I don't much like the stuff, it does mound well.

Almost anything along those lines that can be wet down and glopped into a mound. Right up to the top of the canes, if possible.

Then, of course, keep it wet.

Jeri