These first roses are like your first kid. You are going to fuss all over them. When you have your 100th, you will be less fussy.

So yes, perfectly normal. But I would let them have one year, see how they look and then decide next fall if they need to be moved again.

Totally normal behavior for a rose nut! I've moved some 2 and 3 times before and they do forgive you. If you think you're scrambling for places now wait a few years, lol! I've more than over filled all my space and have 40 permanently in pots!

I've lost track of how many mistakes I've made in planting roses. You think you know more or less what you're doing after a while, only to find out that you make the same mistakes over and over again. Plants don't cooperate either, since they don't do what you've read they will. Then you also end up moving a rose from a place where it was perfectly happy except now it's not, to another place where it's too shady instead of too sunny. One more move then, and the place seems just right, but now the rose is in a snit and will not grow one new shoot in what seems like forever. Finally, it forgives you and now all seems well, but how many beautiful blooms have you lost during all that time? Or, everything seems fine and then a drought hits and your garden goes from pure enjoyment to pure misery. Then its adapt, adapt and adapt some more and meanwhile your garden looks worse than ever and you feel totally helpless. Rose gardening is not for sissies!

Ingrid

You can move a rose too many times though. I still regret moving a Gloire de Dijon that was doing so well on its arch but I thought it would never grow tall enough so I moved it and lost it. I still think I should have waited for it to grow in my less benign climate. Henri Martin also suffered from the move. it's nothing now compared to when it was the motive for our Christmas card. Many other roses have benefited from being moved to better locations so you never know.

I was just adding to my move list. I have 3 in the front yard that have done nothing in the past year + so they are going to get potted up and maybe some potting soil and a change of location will get them going.

I have 3 more that may follow them in the next month if I don't see growth. Not sure why they are not happy.

I also have 3 that I plan on moving from the lower fence line and the ht's to a picking bed for mom

Well I'm glad I'm relatively normal then! As Buford says they are rather like your first kids....maybe I just need more rather than less rose babies then I won't have time to fuss over them all!

I wonder how long people give their roses before they dig up and get rid of them? I admit sometimes just one season is enough. That's not normal is it? it's irrational and wasteful but I just think sometimes you know that a rose is just not for you and you shouldn't have bought it... or else you just want to make room for another one...lol..

Marlorena, I am giving away three of my roses before they've had even one season in my garden, because I can't stand their fragrance. They are "myrrh" scented DAs and I just don't like them. Which is a shame, because they're looking really healthy and robust.

But I don't want to waste any space on roses that I don't love. I think of it as conserving garden space, rather than wasting money or roses.

Good to know it's not just me then. I would be interested to know muscovyduckling, the names of these DA roses in case I've already got them, or might want them at some point. Just to compare... different climates of course but I find some DA's get awful black spot. My 'Wollerton Old Hall' has got covered in it.. and it's on borrowed time right now...

Some people are just rose movers and mind changers. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing exactly as you please in your garden. I actually hate moving roses. My garden is large with a lot of work and maintenance involved. Plus it's on a mountainside.

Actually the fact that most of my newbies came from Antique Rose Emporium made it much easier to change my mind on them a few times because the root ball was fantastic..so mature. One or two others that came from a garden center looked as if they had just been stuck in a pot and barely had roots to speak of..the soil just fell away so I was almost planting bare root. So annoying when that happens!
Marlorena I would so love to try some of the DAs but the few that I tried in the past few years got awful blackspot and failed miserably within the first two years...so sad because my mum has so many of them in England and they are gorgeous! She does spray though I think.

I'm sure she must love them. I like some more than others and quite a few have gone to the happy hunting grounds over the years from right back to the 1980's... however, it's funny you should mention about getting one from the garden centre and all the compost falls away when you take it out the pot. I had the same thing this year with an Austin called 'Lady of Shalot', so I ended up planting it bare root and on a hot day in July.

I've been so impressed with this rose, it recovered quickly, and by early September I had several gorgeous blooms and I even have a few now waiting to come out.... disease free so far.... I'm really looking forward to seeing what this one does next season... of course you have to like this apricot/orange colouring... I expect your Mum most likely has this one already...

I'll look that one up...glad she is doing well for you.

Marlorena, the two Austin's that I didn't like the fragrance of are Glamis Castle and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. They're both robust, prickly things and I haven't seen any disease on them (no spray garden), but I've only had them a few months!

oh o.k. I don't know those two... maybe I give them a miss too... thanks for letting me know... I think Melbourne is a lovely place for growing roses, I always admire them at Flemington racecourse during the Melbourne Cup which is coming up soon... I shall watch on the t.v. mainly to see the roses as much as the race...
...I went to Melbourne some years ago... I enjoyed it very much apart from the flies buzzing around my head...constantly...

Kater, the roses from the local nursery were probably bare roots just a few weeks before you bought them. In my area the local nurseries get their roses in as bare roots and pot them up for sale in May. If they got them in late and they were just potted they were still basically bare root roses. That's probably why the dirt fell away when you un-potted them. They hadn't been potted up long enough to grow any feeder roots to hold the soil yet. They should still do fine for you.

I have lost a few roses due to a move as Marianne said. Most of the time it was an ill considered move on my part to begin with. Or I didn't take enough care to get a large enough root ball. But if done correctly most roses will go on very well after a move. Just give them a little extra TLC and they'll be happy again soon.