That's awful Paul. I'm sorry you took such a hit.
Would it make more sense now to ship each rose separately?

Thanks for explaining it Paul.

I will say that I hate being held hostage by the gas companies. It makes me sick what they charge us and then they boast record breaking profits...in the BILLIONS...

"Meanwhile, oil companies have logged record profits -- Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit in U.S. corporate history in 2006, at $39.5 billion, topping the company's same feat in 2005." source IndyStar

I dont want to hear them quibble about refinery repairs or increased demands...with those kinds of profits...there is no excuse.

All this attitude ...and technically I can afford the gas! What about the folks who cannot?

(Steping off soapbox)

Thanks for all you do Paul. We appreciate you.

Thanks Paul. I had wondered if it's possible to request bareroot shipping from Ashdown. As I'm sure you know, a few companies wash off the soil and ship the plant bareroot. After it's potted up for a few weeks, it's ready to plant out. It seems to work, and holds shipping costs way down.

Cheers,
Michelle

Thank you Paul for the explanation. It makes perfect sense. I recently read an article that stated gas prices are expected to rise significantly in the next few years and will not be coming down. Why? Well there appears to be a lot of reasons but the two that stood out to me is that the supply (in the ground) of oil has passed the halfway point and the United States is no longer the biggest world market for gasoline and thusly can no longer dictate the cost for fuel. Of course others will disagree. Yesterday I read on the Exxon site that taxes account for 40 cents per gallon in the U.S. In Europe taxes are even higher, accounting for 80% of the cost of gasoline.

It is a complicated issue. However we analyze it the fact remains fuel costs have risen to the point were we are seeing it affect prices across the entire economy.

What worries me most is that weÂve seen this before, but on a much smaller scale. For those who remember the 70s, think back to the oil shocks during that period and what it did to inflation.

Michael, if it is not based on weight, but assignation by the powers-that-be as to cubic size and they make a weight out of whole cloth, would washing the roots make a difference? I have in fact received clematis (older clematis, big clematis) from a vendor who does exactly what you are proposing here and it has in the past cut down on shipping costs which she was able to pass along to her customers, but does it not sound like USPS has figured out a way to get around that for Uncle Sugar's benefit?

well, actually yes Paul you can go back to your customers. we DO appreciate that you dont, but.....

I'm in the restaurant world & each & every bill now is carrying surchages, surchages and more surchages. its brutal out there.

the era of cheap transportation is over at least until biofuels or transporter beams get on the scene.

Hi Patricia, it's Michelle not Michael... :-)

Just to keep this straight - I know how well Ashdown packs plants - their method is great and I am not knocking it.

Anyway, yes, it does make a difference. The plant is so much smaller without the pot. Yes, it still has to be a long box, but it does not have to be as wide and deep. The cu. ft. required is much smaller.

Anyway, if I am going to spend a hundred bucks on plants, I'd rather be paying the grower for additional plants than paying buku $$ to ship the soil.

Cheers,
Michelle

Michelle, I had not had coffee when I typed that. I knew intellectually who I was talking to but my brain had not transmitted that to my fingers. I was embarrassed when I went back and read what you were talking about. LOL. Excuse me. I will blame it on the lack of coffee or my fingers but it is probably all related to brain or lack thereof.

Well, that sounds like a good idea to me. I am all about ordering roses and yes, Ashdown, does a great job of shipping, just wondering if USPS has devised a way to get around us having "less expensive" as an alternative to shipping.

I remember the oil shock of the seventies.I also remember the government instituting mandatory gas mileage standards for new vehicles and attempts to devise ways to wean us from oil dependency.The public[we the people]said``forget it'' once the gas prices went down.We got what we wanted.Don't blame big anything,its our fault pure and simple-minded.
By the way,twenty miles over the speed limit should be 5yrs. of hard labor,building new bike paths.

This is straying off the roses topic, but the current oil situation reminds me of the rolling blackouts in CA a few years back. Remember all the excuses as to why it happened? Turns out Enron was behind it. If you Google the power blackout, you will get old web pages attempting to explain(at the time) the reasons. I was watching congressional hearings on the current oil situation, and the only recycling I saw was the oil company's excuses. That and everyone saying how they really don't make money off oil- someone else does. I say forget the hearings, and subpoenae their computers & Blackberry's- then we'll get to the real source of this situation.

Thats what they are in business for-to make as much money as possible.We make it easy for them.The traders determine prices,not the oil companies.

I am a staunch capitalist, but not when its rigged. The last is not in on this situation- just my guess.

Hi There,

Thanks for the great feedback and ideas in your posts. IÂll try to answer the best I can.

Jackie o. Regarding shipping each rose separately. I thought of that but what postal rates for any shipping company do not rise equally per added pound. There is always a "base" rate for each box. For example shipping one rose in a single box might cost for example $8 but two roses in a single box holding both of them might cost $12 even though the box weighs twice as much because it has two roses in it. That is why as customer you can always lower your shipping per rose by ordering more roses from that individual vendor.

Michelle co Regarding bareroot shipping. For us it would not be actually bareroot it would be exactly as you say washing the soil off the plant. WeÂve thought very hard about this and had several discussions that are on going. We might try offering it but with a deadline of say you have to take your roses by March 30. The problem with us is our roses are in tunnels and after that they have too much tender new growth to bareroot them. But your point is well taken and if current shipping rate trends continue we need to look much harder at doing that  particularly to customers on your side of the country.

Patricia43. barerooting the roses would help with costs simply because we can get more roses into a smaller space. The trick would be to figure out which box to use, get the "dimension weight" for it, divide that by the number of roses we get in that box and there we are. But weÂd have to use several different box sizes to accommodate orders of various numbers of plants. In other words if you order 10 roses and I can get them into one box you would pay the same amount of shipping cost as someone who ordered 3 roses shipping in the same size box. But yes, it would help cost.

We and all nurseries will of course continue to explore creative ways to bring costs down regarding shipping. After all our livelihood depends on it. I know all you try hard to support small nurseries but even at that there is a "breaking point"

Keep the great ideas coming!

Paul

This whole dimension thing the post office has worked out sounds like another rip off scam to me. My opinion of the post office and the level of service we receive from them in my area is not very high. The gas prices are high, but they haven't changed that much in the past year or so, so I feel that if they are using that as an excuse, they'd better come up with another one. It's not like it has gone from $3.00 a gallon to $5.00 a gallon. Aviation fuel is a little more expensive than car gas, but again, hasn't risen all of a sudden to dramatic new heights. Having space in an aircraft CAN be a concern, since if it doesn't fit, it doesn't go.... but WEIGHT is the main concern when it comes to sticking something in an airplane.

My thought on taking plants, washing soil from them, and then packing them in a box, sounds like a great deal of trauma to the rose bush to me. I guess I still prefer to have them come intact in pots. Maybe offering some bands is the way to go. For us impatient souls, it's hard to wait while they obtain some size in a pot, but on the other hand, quite often bands have adjusted to my climate better. I purchased an Anna Olivier this time last year from a local nursery that was band size. She is now 4 feet x 4 feet and extremely healthy. Ditto with Madame Lombard.

Makes me angry to see this whole ripple effect with our economy because it hurts the hard working, local (USA) businesses. Well, as long as I can afford to purchase quality products from good people like you Paul, I will continue to do so, despite the shipping.

Sandy

The box size issue is a pain in other industries as well. I do wedding cakes as a side business, and I occasionally make "dummy" cakes, i.e., cakes made of styrofoam rounds and decorated for use as displays. Well. The styrofoam (which we all know weighs NOTHING) costs about $2.00 for a 10" round from a huge online supplier. But the shipping was like $30.00 (!?!) because, like Paul says, they price it for the size of box it is shipped in, or basically by the potential "weight" that box *could* be (like 70 lb). Cripes.

I love bareroots and have no problem at all ordering them or receiving them, and they do well for me, so that would be my first choice of alternative.

It sounds like many of you have had great success with bareroot roses. I've never tried them because I didn't think they would do well. Maybe there is a difference between a bareroot that is simply slipped out of its pot and rinsed off, versus one that is actively growing in the ground and then ripped out. Ripping any rose out of the ground is traumatic for it, regardless of what is said about doing so.

I'm willing to try a container-grown rose that that is shipped bare root. However, I still fail to see how a rose would care much for its roots being tampered with. They barely tolerate being shipped intact sometimes. Maybe it depends on the rose.

sandy

I ordered Abracadabra from Moore's roses this spring. The rose was shipped in a poster sized tube from USPS. The rose had the soil washed off the roots and the roots were wrapped in newspaper. I followed instructions and potted it for a week after it arrived. Then I planted it in the ground. It is doing well and has had a bloom on it that lasted for 2 weeks. It was a little bit smaller than the ones I had from Ashdown but that might be that it was more upright while my Ashdown roses were more sprawling. I certainly wouldn't mind having roses shipped this way as the roses don't seem to care and they do as well as a potted rose. Although a deadline of March 30 might not work well in Wisconsin.

On bareroots in boxes, I ordered 25 from Pickering this spring, and when the box arrived, it had ALL of them in it, in a long rectangular-tube box probably 10" square, 12" at most, can't remember how long, maybe 3'. When the guy handed it to me, I was like, "Oh, good. I wonder when the rest will arrive." And they were all in there, safe and sound, and took right off when planted. I was impressed with how tightly they were able to pack them in there, and none of them had weakling roots.

This is so frustrating. I've got 8 beautiful Barden and old garden Gallicas to send to the east coast. All of them are 18 inches tall. If I put them in a box so they will fit, it will cost $32 to ship them under the new rules. The online shipping formula charged only $17.50 to the customer. I can ask the customer for more money, or I can cut these plants down to fit in a box that go at a cheaper rate. Unfortunately, that would mean cutting off _all_ the foliage, the buds and the blooms. I can't imagine I'd have a happy customer that received pots with thorny leafless sticks. Plus that puts me at a high risk of having to replace plants that could deal with such harsh treatment.

To be really honest, I'm glad I'm getting out of this business. Along with the ever tightening rules for compliance with plant pathogen rules (like SOD), purchasing plants by mail order is going to get really expensive in the coming years.

-K Lars Lohn
owner, the Uncommon Rose

Athena, I had the same experience with Moore roses. I had really great luck with those as they were such large, healthy plants. I'd prefer to be able to purchase those over bands (however, I have a lot of bands, too). Also did several trades this Spring of washed-root-roses and they are all doing extremely well.

Paul, I would be happy to buy a few roses over the summer if you want to test out washing the roots and sending them to me. I will not ask for replacements or complain if anything fails. It's just an offer to see how it would work out over the hot summer months (and an excuse to buy a few more plants). ;-)

Cheers,
Michelle

I've ordered a lot of things online besides roses, and some of the packaging has been creative. Some of the shrub vendors are squeezing in plants by packing them at both ends (imagine something long and narrow with the pots placed and banded to the box at the top and bottom), so you're fitting two plants in the space normally occupied by one. I wonder if something like that would work with roses, since some of my shrubs have been 2 or 3 ft. tall when I received them.

I agree that receiving a rose without foliage or flowers is not a disappointing experience, especially when it means the rose is more affordable. It's also more sanitary because there are fewer places where diseases and pests can hide in transit, and the plant isn't likely to be as stressed from water loss or trying to support leaves without light for days on end. While people's faces might light up at the sight and smell of a rose in bloom arriving in a box, this is really a luxury and shouldn't be an industry expectation. Don't give up on creative packaging or plant pruning solutions, especially with resilient plants like roses.

Hmm, so the size of the box determines its weight regardless of how little mass it actually contains? I bet they don't have any qualms about charging extra if the box goes OVER the weight that's based on size. Otherwise we might well see a boom in the mail-order pet rock business, or anvil trading ;)

I ship plants home to my parents via FedEx and have found them reasonable in the past. Are there no better alternatives to USPS and UPS?

Just a random thought going thru my head.. would it be more cost effective to find a box that works best with the USPS rules regarding dimension, and buy it yourself rather than using their "free" boxes .. you know they have figured out their fees based upon their boxes.

I don't know if that would be more cost effective or provide some sort of answer to the problem. Sort of along the lines as the "tubes" others are referring to. I wonder if there is a rectangular smaller box that a band would just slip into.. and how much it would cost to mail.

I also traded a couple of years ago with a forumer who told me to wash all excess soil out of the roots, wrap them in wet paper towels and then plastic wrap. I never would have believed the roses would make it not wilted and "shocked" but they arrived in great shape, and I have sent quite a few this way thru the mail also and always "checked back" with the person I was trading with. No complaints ever.
Of course that was to keep the "weight" down. Dimensions are a whole nuther ballgame.

Marleah

I am glad your site will stay up as I visit it often. The offer for free hosting is a standing one. I host a couple of other websites that I appreciate, and am happy to be able to help if needed.

Cheers,
Michelle

Argh, I posted this on the wrong thread. Sorry! It's supposed to be on Trospero's thread.