What a great find! Much better than letting them be torn out and thrown in a dumpster. Definitely worth all the work and the scratches. I just got into growing roses (started with a BJ's $10 potted rose "Cherish" last summer, found 2 more "Cherish last month at grocery store for $2 ea that were infected with black spot but seem to be recovering - new growth). My mom has some of my great-grandma's climbing roses (not fragrant) by her stone wall, said I could take some if I got rid of all the poison ivy there first.

I also transplanted some of the lilacs they needed to thin out - we had taken some 15 years ago for our old house and I was sad to leave them. They were originally from an old house built in the 1700s that used to be a stagecoach stop/inn, that was owned my an old farming family that my aunt married into - but they divorced, her FIL died and her former SIL wouldn't wait for her DB to scrape up the $ to buy her out so the land was subdivided and the house was sold. I feel bad for my cousins, but I drive pastt that house every day and the people who bought it have restored it beautifully (at least the outside - I would love to see the inside, since when they lived there it was 2-family with 70's decor upstairs, dark and gloomy and smoky from woodstove, dark (original?) paneling downstairs).

I just hate seeing the 3 McMansions behind it on the hill we used to hay in the summer and ski/snowmobile on in the winter.

As usual, got off track, I ramble, but I think that saving old plants is a way to connect to our past as well as preserve the stock, rather than going out and buying new genetically-engineered, hybrid, grafted (much as I love Cherish) stock. I like to think that my lilacs were planted originally by a Colonist who built that old house. We also are finding wild blueberries in our woods (high and low bush) are we clear the brush more around the house and try to reclaim more of the hayfield. We discovered a couple of apple trees too, DH is going to try to prune them since they are about 35-40 ft tall now. Those may even have been planted before my great-great-grandfather bought the land, since they are not located in what has always been known as the "orchard" (now on my uncle's property).

Oh, Pesky - what a great find! I'd have been right next to you - I hate to see beautiful old plants and shrubs go to waste. Years from now when anyone admires your beautiful roses you can tell them the funny story of how you got them. Good job!

Knowing that those fruit trees were going to be cut would have killed me.

What an exciting rescue . . . I'm sure your plants will be very happy in their new homes!

I wish I'd gotten starts of my grandma's roses and lilacs before they were dug up . . . nice memories.

Oh yeah, we wished we could have gotten all the roses, and somehow saved the fruit trees, too, but we were in a small SUV and had all our field gear in there too. As it was, the rose plants we got filled the back seat. Of course, there was no way to save the fruit trees. And unfortunately the fruit wasn't ripe enough to pick. Darn.

My next trip to the field may yield some fruit saving, IF the trees are still there when I go.

That is one of the hardest parts of my job, knowing and seeing beautiful native or mature vegetation removed for development. Of course, the development has to replant, but it's never the same.

How much do you want to bet they will name the streets in that development after the various trees and plants they cut down to build on - Rose Boulvevard, Cherry Lane and Pear Tree Court.

That was indeed a great opportunity, and I hope your "new" old roses will quickly take root and thrive in their new home!

Go post this on the antique rose forum--they'll be thrilled!

Thank you for saving everything you could, and a big virtual thank you to the developer for being a just plain decent person. Try to put the word out about the trees as quickly as you can, maybe some of them can be saved too.

Graywings took the words right out of my mouth. Sad but true. I've seen it happen too many times.

Now I'll be honest, I live in a circa 1900 version of a "subdivision" - one of many neighborhoods of similar little houses built for the factory workers during the town's manufacturing heyday. But I live on the corner of [tree name] Street and there are about twenty surviving trees of that species on a street that's perhaps an eighth of a mile long, trees that were old when the houses were built; old photographs show the houses fitted in amongst the trees. We are blessed to have one of them on our tiny lot - we call it our Grandfather Tree and it is over four feet in diameter. An even larger one is on the unbuildable lot (ravine + wetlands + small river) that borders us on one side, and a fallen giant nearly six feet thick still serves the very daring as a bridge down into the ravine behind our house. THAT is truly [tree name] Street.

When we moved into our house, it had been a rental for decades and the "landscaping" completely neglected. We had arborists out and after much discussion it was decided that almost nothing could be salvaged without a great deal of money and far more skill than either of us had - we had really hoped to save a few lilacs planted during WWII but even a lilac specialist we weaseled into looking at them said that it was a project he wouldn't particularly like to tackle and that we were better off starting over (which we are, slowly, but budgetarily landscaping has not been a terribly high priority). We put the word out and several trees and shrubs were taken off to new homes before the tree company started in on the general removal, and at our last house we Freecycled the huge rhododendrons I loathed - "you dig it up, it's yours!" (It took three men, a truck and a winch to get those monsters out.)

I'm afraid the fruit trees won't be saved. It's a shame, tho. Yes, that developer was awesome and that he's going to incorporate as much of the existing vegetation that he can, a giant sycamore tree is going to be saved, it's good. I wish I lived nearby...but it's a 3.5-4 hr drive so I can't get down there and save the rest of the roses.

When we moved into our home we had to do away with a lot of undesirable, overgrown landscaping. Everything had been pruned, but was way too big. Rhodies, swordferns, juniper bushes...ugh, we dug & loaded more truck loads to the compost yard than I can count.

The PO has planted a weeping japanese maple in the back yard, and it's position was wrong for us. I contacted a dozen landscapers and told them they dig, they can have. It was easily a $1500 specimen, but none of them wanted it. We really didn't want to destroy it, and fortunately, our next door n'bor contacted the POs and they came and saved it and brought it to their new place. Turned out it had been an anniversary gift for them in the first place, so it was good it was saved.

I got the roses planted today...managed to dig the holes before it got too hot, and watered them very well. They appear to be handling the move pretty well so far. The leaves have perked up again, so only time will tell. Some of the root balls were bigger than basketballs!

Oh my gosh...that's the kind of rose I dream of (I just can't get excited about hybrids - there's a local snobbery about 'own-root' roses here in the Rose City :)) How amazing! I've done my share of *native* plant rescue back in NC, as part of an organized group, but never rescued cultivated plants before. We may end up doing some of that with the foreclosed home next door :(. But wow, pesky -- you saved probably a bit of pioneer history there. I wish you were closer up here so you could let me know the address :)

"I can't get down there and save the rest of the roses. "

Do you think they would mind if you posted it on CL? I see lots of ads like that in the *FREE* section of CL. I've tried to answer a couple of those types of ads but have always been too late, and someone responded to get the location of the roses/shrubs/daylillies/etc. before me.

I don't think they'll want anyone else on the property. It was kind of weird for me to ask them in the first place, as I was on the job at the time. (I DID use my lunch break to do the digging!)

I told my next door neighbor, who is quite active with a local rose group and he directed me to a group that may be able to identify the roses and possibly give me some history on them. He told the story of a rose that made it's way over on the Oregon Trail from the east coast. It is still blooming today!

Fly, the roses came from a lot in Grants Pass...too far to go for a rescue.