If it were me, I'd be on the phone to Dutch Gardens, asking them why they shipped you cankered plants.

Jeri

That sounds odd to me that you are still dealing with canker! I always thought canker stopped when the weather warmed up a little. the ones i have had that had canker either got over it a while back or died long before now.

All I know is that the plants looked pretty healthy to me when I received them. Then it seemed like almost overnight the canes blackened on the two worst ones, and the original canes don't look good on the two plants that seem to be doing okay in spite of.

Is there anything cultural I might have done to induce this kind of damage? I would feel like a plague if my other plants weren't doing so well, including seven body bags. I guess my original post was wrong, since I planted nine bodybags in pots. Two died right away, but hey, they WERE bodybags after all.

Would the plants have had to come with the canker for it to progress to it's current point? Or can they get after planting?

I bought ebb tide and lasting love from Dutch Gardens this year. The slowest to come around was ebb tide. I soaked them for a week and potted them in 5 gallon contaners with Kellogg growmulch. I kept them in shade under a clear plastic bag. I watered every other day with misting of the canes. All made it. Lasting love was under the plastic only a week since it sent out 1in growth quickly. I also bought livin easy which is still a question mark for me. Last year 30% success rate with bareroots in the ground and this year potted 30 and lost none so far. The shade and bag is the key, I think.

Always cut off blackened canes below the black area... whether it is a bare root or an established plant...

When you purchase cheaper roses, you have to expect to expend a bit of extra effort to get them to be good performers.

After a couple of years of this extra work, I decided it was just a lot easier to spend a couple of extra bucks on own root or planted roses when possible...

decobug, I pruned these plants out...and I wouldn't say they were cheap. I paid 20 bucks apiece for bareroots....now I know how crazy that was, but they were also large plants that looked pretty healthy to me. My cheapo bodybags look WAY better than my expensive bareroots. But I potted them instead of straight-to-the-ground. But I am already finding out, I think, that bareroot is not the way for me. Unless I can't help it. ;o)

milkdudski, very interesting that the potted ones all made it. Are these already in the ground? Or will you plant them next year? My Ebbies had quite a bit of shade for awhile, even right where they were planted. I didn't sweat them, though...

I am waiting for a good root system to develop then cut pot plant them in the fall. By the way, the wax on one of the Dutch garden bareroots melted within 2 days but the rest still have it.

Greenhaven, besides beetles, Id say canker was the scourge of my garden. That's why I have serious trepidation about mounding bareroots. I only did it because I trust Karl's advice. But I did remove the mulch a week after planting when I saw a little leaf. I trust the experienced gardeners on this site and always appreciate their awesome advice. But sometimes your gutt tells you something different. In my case, I really felt deeply that I had to unmound those plants asap. It happened to work out for me as suddenly we got a spell of wet weather, so I know the canes were kept moist but could still get the fresh air. I don't know if your bareroots were mounded too long, but if they got canker after being planted, that would be the first thing I would think of. Of course, the more experienced rosarians would be the ones to listen to.

~MH

I've been peeling mine off, even as late as last week. I thought I got most of it at planting time, but apparently not.

Sorry, mehearty, we posted at the same time! I am only slightly ashamed to say that i did not mound my bareroots. We had SO MUCH wet weather, plus the plants were already starting to show some growth, so I just plain planted them.

If you could watch the harvesting process used on bare root roses you would see why you have so much canker. There is so much cane damage caused by the mechanical harvester that one would wonder why there is not more canker.
I closely inspect new bare roots when I get them and cut back each cane to eliminate all damaged portions of cane. Chances are each place damaged with a cut or scuff will develope canker, more so those bare roots that have been held in storage these many months. The later you get them in the season the more canker will develope. In zone 5 and lower with the later shipping seasons we get plants that have been held in cold storage since late November of the previous year, often as long as 4 or 5 months, and the late season sales are older yet.
Odds are the commercial growers of potted bare roots that show up in bud and bloom in May, received them in January or February when they were still fairly fresh. Those fresh plants seem to develope less canker. Look closely at the potted plants in the stores. Chances are you'll find a lot of blind growth at the base of many. Looking closely, you'll find areas of harvest damage that was not cut off.
These damaged canes are more apt to develope blind shoots.
I've seen some damage canes on potted bushes with nothing but blind growth. We tend to overlook this as the plants appear healthy with all that foliage that was forced in warm greenhouses and fertilized with diluted fertilizer each time they are watered.

Mehearty,
BTW, mounding the canes will not make for more canker. Good, undamaged, canes will not develope canker under a mound of soil. Another reason to cut off damaged portions. I leave the soil mound on any newly planted bare roots and let Mom Nature wash it off. The extra soil will not harm anything and adds to winter protection properties.

The tiniest nick with your prunners or an insect bite can be a place for the canker fungus to enter.
Not having been subject to cold storage or mechanical harvesting, bands seldom develope canker which is why you don't see much on your plants that have matured from a band.

I'd agree with not mounding the bareroots with the spring we've had. I only had canker on one of the new bareroots, but that was one that was a body bag with more growth than I like on a bareroot. That new growth was what ended up with canker, probably because it was already weak from growing in the dark.

Next year, order a few bareroots from Palatine roses or another really good rose vendor. My Palatine roses are already producing their first flowers and look very healthy and happy. I didn't do anything special to them, no misting or mounding since we had so much rain. In my (admittedly short) experience, a healthy bareroot won't get canker. I don't know if your bareroots had canker when you got them or where unhealthy so they were susceptible to canker, but either way I haven't had this problem on good quality bareroot roses.

I did see a lot of canker this spring on my older roses. I was aggressive with pruning and stopped all of it quickly. There was only one rose that had canker lately and I think it was fairly mild case earlier so I didn't see it right away.

Anyway, I wouldn't say the bareroot roses is necessarily your problem. Bands and potted roses are a little safer since the rose is already growing and there is less to go wrong, but you'd be limiting yourself.

You know, Karl, after we talked about blind growth the other day I did go back and look more closely at a few of my bodybag roses. There was one plant in particular that did have a lot of blind growth. I pruned down to a five-leaf on each one in hopes that it might remedy, but all of the blind growth came from canes growing from damaged canes. What you say makes a LOT of sense.