Hi bart,
I think roses in general respond well to transplanting if you prune them hard and pamper them when the new shoots start growing.

But I am not familiar with your climate. Are you sure that your rose cultivars can grow in your warm climate?

And preparing and nurturing the soil is a big issue. Did you consider some green manure: planting seed of short lived plants that are worked into the soil after a while?

Good luck,
Lin

If they're not one cane wonders I'd try and enhance their conditions and see if that helps. Soil amendments and some TLC might be all they need. If they are just one cane wonders maybe they're not worth the effort. In any event I'd start a program to improve your soil for any future roses.

Bart, I would think if they are well known for being vigorous plants which grow well in your climate type, they should be worth giving a greater chance. If they're known for being "miffy" types, and you don't mind the expense of trashing them for replacements, go for it. The bottom line is, if you don't wish to consume the time and energy waiting for them to prove themselves, replace them. It's totally your choice and decision. Good luck! Kim

Thanks, people. In some cases, they ARE one-cane wonders. There's the Cardinal Hume that I had growing in awful conditions: horrible soil with only a rock wall nearby. I moved it to a better spot with much better soil, but it is showing no signs of flourishing; it's larger cane has died back; it's only a short branch by now. My guess is that maybe the rootstock has died off and it's going own-root,but just doesn't have enough own-root mass to support a real plant. Then there's Climbing Mrs. Sam Mc Gredy; this one was in a spot that I have since discarded as being just too poor and hot for roses; I moved it to a somewhat better but not good soil area,and then the drought hit and it just sat there. So I moved it again,giving it decent soil (or what passes for such in my garden),but it's still just kind of sitting there...

I give a new rose four years, seven years at the very most if it's an uncommon variety. Rose Replant Disease is a fact here as well so I can't move roses as much as I'd like to. I planted tagetes all over an old site for a season and it worked well. The new roses thrived but the orange was so ugly next to the pink neighbours in a very prominent place that I won't do it again.

Do you have a lawn or other grassy areas? Mulching with a thick layer of fresh cut grass once or twice in the year is a good way of improving the soil, feeding the plants and preserving moisture.

My thoughts are as follows:

1) As many people said above, make sure that the roses you have are theoretically OK with your climate (for example, I cannot grow old European once bloomers here - not enough winter chill.).

2) If the rose is in theory OK with your climate, I do not think having a tough childhood would make the plant so that it could not recover and thrive in better conditions.

3) If the roses are planted in enough sun, I would not move them - I would just feed them, mulch them, and make sure they get enough water. If they are planted in the shade, I would move them.

4) In my garden it can take over 5 years for a new rose to really "wake up". Yours may be growing roots that you cannot see, instead of "doing nothing".

Generally, you live in a climate that is very favorable to many roses, old and new, so I would just give them more time, water, and love.

Good Luck!

Jackie

I have an own-root Alliance Franco-Russe that I planted in 2005. She wouldn't grow and she wouldn't die. I have moved her four times. At last, she is happy. On the other hand, I have had several roses, mostly grafts, that get smaller and smaller until they have one spindly cane. Those I do remove. Where there's life, here's hope versus mercy killings.

For what its worth, I find that the only thing that works for me with one-cane wonders and other assorted wimps is to dig them up and grow them on in pots for a year or so. This usually works quite well, and after a year of babying, I have had former weaklings grow into big healthy plants. However, I don't know if you have a place where you can keep potted roses happy. Plus, I don't have problems with rose replant. For me, the cause of "wimpitude" is usually that I plant the rose in a spot that has way too much other stuff to compete with (annuals, perennials, other roses, shrubs, you name it); my soil is generally pretty good. So I don't know if my experience is helpful for you, but I mention this just in case. In any event, good luck with whatever you decide!

I'm with Jackie ... In our situation, 5 years is not at all unreasonable.

I can wait. And it is so great when they do at last take off and fly. :-)

I'm glad I started this thread; it's very interesting and i really appreciate all your contributions, forum maties.Mariannese,how I can relate to your tagetes thing! I know they are so good for the soil,but the bright orangey colour is so out of place with my general scheme of mauves, pinks, purples, etc; I sort of can't bring myself to do it! Catsrose, I guess I AM getting suspicious that some of my wimps may be doing the gradual dwindling thing,though I must confess that by now I get very confused as to how long exactly any given plant has been in my garden; I have so many,put in new ones each year, and move them around...which brings me to Frances' point. I have done the potting-up thing, but sad to say, I don't seem to be very good at cultivating stuff in pots.Sometimes I think I've got too many irons in the fire,or maybe I'm just lazy or easily distracted...This year, I had a really big pot ghetto,and started out all brave and strong,determined to follow Kim's "weakly, weekly" fertilizing plan...well, that only lasted maybe a month or so;I kept on forgetting to do it,losing track of when I last did it, forgetting to mark the calender, etc, etc,etc.Then the soil gets tired and one ought to re-pot, but somehow i can't seem to keep up. Now, some of the ones that I put in pots DID manage to put on some encouraging bulk,but others are still just sitting there.Some of these I'm thinking to try planting out anyway,but making sure that I do some good soil improvement this time. regards, bart

I may just have to start shovel pruning some come spring...even though I've held onto them for so long. I can stick a Mister Lincoln cane in the fall anywhere in my yard, the following year it will grow healthily disease free and with blooms. I have a white John F Kennedy rose, and although I love its long lasting blooms, powdery mildew takes out each bud before it blooms, and black spot are all over the leaves now as well. I've moved it this year, and still no improvement. I planted a Pink Peace bare-root right next to it this spring, and it has grown very healthily with no diseases, and with more blooms this year than John F Kennedy has given me in the 3 years I've had it.

Bart ...

A couple of random thoughts.

I am not certain about what you mean by "poor soil". Is the ph too high or too low to grow healthy roses ? Is it because it is not "fluffy" or friable ? Or what ?

When I first started my rose garden, my soil was dead. The house pad and gardening area had been cut out of a slope. There was no plant organic material in the soil. After I scraped off all of the decorative rock and weed barrier covering the gardening area that the previous owner of my home had put down, it wouldn't even grow weeds !

If I had it to do over again, I would approach preparing the planting areas differently than I did, but I was a novice at having an in-ground garden. My previous garden was a container garden, so to be blunt, I didn't know what I was doing. Instead of preparing a whole bed, I dug rose holes.

I am gardening in what we call glacier slurry/subsoil. It is tightly compressed small stones with clay and silt gluing them together and cannot be dug with a shovel. It's truly lousy soil, but does have excellent drainage.

I compensated for the lack of natural organic materials in the soil by feeding the roses with chemical food and mulching the whole bed with any organic materials I could glean that would decompose and feed the soil twice a year. Over the years, the soil has become friable, but it still cannot promote vigorous growth with only organics and I still have to rely on chemical fertilizers to supply the nutrient needs of the plants along with some organics. (The ratio is changing over time.)

I have a no-till garden and everything goes on top of the soil in the beds. It takes years to improve soil this way, but it has worked for me.

I agree that it takes at least 4 years before a rose really has it's feet under it and comes into its own. I think of younger roses as juvenile plants. Kind of like young trees and have different expectations for them. btw ... every time you or I move a rose, I think that plant is starting over and think of the rose as a new plant and needs time in the new location to settle in.

There are other variables that can impact the viability of your roses other than soil. Drainage is a big one. Root competition plays a role. The quality of the light and more.

A couple of years ago, I moved two roses that had been in place for 3 years because they were just sitting there and not growing. In the next season, both of them tripled in size. My guess is that they were fighting with a shrub on the other side of the fence and not getting the nutrients and water that they needed to thrive.

I have found other variables in this garden that has made a huge difference in the viability of the roses. Some roses are more thirsty than others and need to be watered more often. Some roses hate hard pruning while others truly need the stimulation of harder pruning. Some roses seem to need heavier feeding than others. The roses are the real teachers there. I started taking notes as I worked and it really helped me find out what roses like what.

Last thought ... roses like other plants have a mandate to grow. In our third year of extreme drought, I saw the roses abandon growth they could not support. This summer, it was kind of like they just hunkered down and survived. They did not put on a lot of new growth or bloom well at all this season.

In my part of California we are now getting regular rain. The high temps dropped and the roses started putting on new growth and blooms at a time of year when they are generally slowing down for winter. We have had a "warm" fall and have yet to have our first hard freeze. The roses look better than they have for a couple of years. The weeds are jumping out of the ground, too. I am thinking that even tho' they have been horribly stressed, the roses are going to be OK, but it may take a couple of seasons for them to become as strong and viable as they were before the drought.

This is one of those times when patience is the most important thing I can give the roses.

Smiles,
Lyn

Actually, my "poor soil" sounds a lot like yours, Lyn! I've been bending over backwards, lugging in organic matter and even just plain clay to plump things up. In many places,I've found that my soil just doesn't absorb water, even after a heavy rain,and even in some places where I've been working on it, I don't see any earthworms, for example,so I guess "lifeless" would be the right term for that. I, too, started out doing "rose holes" ,which was a bad thing in many areas,and my soil can't be dug with a shovel, either, in many areas. But things are improving...bart

Bart ...

I have clay and silt with the rocks in my gardening area, which does hold moisture. If you have more sand particles between the rocks, the water may be draining too fast. I don't know.

I did a perk test on each rose hole to determine how fast the rose hole drained. The books say that it should drain completely within a couple of hours, but a rose friend told me that if it drained overnight, the rose would be fine. Turns out she was right.

As I said above, I have perfect drainage. It can rain hard for days and there are no puddles, so I know the water is passing through and I don't have to deal with root rot. I think that happens because of all of the rocks !

I don't put any organic material or manures in my rose holes, but just use the native soil along with all of the small rocks and put the amendments on top because the feeder roots of a rose can be found in the top 10 inches ... of course, it depends on the rose.

If you have sandy soil where the drainage is too fast, someone else who has experience with that kind of soil can give you better advice than I can because I have not gardened in that kind of soil.

After a couple of years of just mulching on top, I found a lot of earth worms in the soil where there had been none when I started. Last year, when I planted bulbs in the same beds where I couldn't dig with a shovel when I first planted my roses, after years of mulching, I could dig easily with a hand trowel.

You've said you are uncomfortable with container gardening. I am too, especially since I garden in an area where there are high summer temps all season long. However, I have found that if I plant a rose with a larger and healthy root mass, the rose takes off faster and seems to be able to handle the stress of high temps and the colder winter temps. So, I do grow the roses in containers until they have a healthy root mass before planting them in the ground.

I think, with less than good soil, starting plants with a good root mass is one of the primary keys to success.

Smiles,
Lyn

Looking at Clbg. Mrs. Sam yesterday, I'm thinking seriously to sp.It's just one cane,about a foot high, and now even that looks like it's dying.Perhaps a combination of being moved too many times, of never having had good conditions,and of being kind of a "miffy" rose to begin with...and I seem to remember I DID start that one in a pot,so it may well just be time for The Shovel,at least for that one.