I had 4 roses from my DA order last year that had huge cuts through the grafted part. I don't know how that happened except maybe the way they were harvested in the field (just guessing). They totally replaced them all free of charge and told me to keep them and try and grow the originals if I wanted. Very good customer service once I got a hold of them lol. I would order from them again.

I have gotten many roses from David Austin USA over the years. The have a very responsive customer service group. I am sure that if you call them and explain what you received, that they would most probably send you a better plant for no charge ASAP.

All the virus infected roses that are sold every year is bad enough, someone shipping crown gall across political boundaries - and into California, of all places! - is about as sloppy as it can get - this contagious nuisance has cost the nursery industry a lot of money in some areas.

I think I would contact them, and burn the plants.

But if one of their plants is galled, many more probably are, after all. Nor would they be the first nursery whose stock was widely affected with gall.

YMMV, but I would be inclined to avoid that nursery in the future.

I wish you'd post pictures. I have no clue what that is!! Judy

Prettypetals, here's some photos. The first is just some badly crossed over canes. I'm used to doing a little shaping when plants arrive but his is a bit much.

Second photo shows mold and the third shows the gall.

The last photo shows the damaged cane. There are other canes that similarly damaged canes.

I don't care about the crossed canes. I'd ignore that for a year. But the gall is something else, and I would NOT ignore that.
YMMV.

Wow! Thank you so much for the photos. It gives me something to keep an eye out for bc I have several bare roots coming soon from them soon. I've been very nieve and really don't inspect my roses much when I receive them but I will from now on. I'm sure they will fix this bc they've always been a great company to work with for me so far! Good luck!!! Judy

No real problem with the crossed canes, I would leave them in place for the time being. The others will need replacement. Not sure if this is a bacterial gal but I would avoid planting that one regardless.

Any idea what that white gunk is?

I've ordered from DA for several years and the roses usually arrived in very good condition. I would probably have rated them tops in quality of any bare root vendor.

Last year my order was a tangled mess. Most were ok but some had broken roots and canes. Some tags had fallen off. In their defense they immediately replaced every thing that was damaged or unidtintifiable due to the tag mix-up.

But back to the white gunk, all the roots were slimy and most had that white gunk, mostly on the tips of the canes. I always soak the roots with a bit of bleach to disinfect. Didn't seem to cause any ill effects but I was worried what kind of germs they had sent me.

Yikes, crown gall! Thanks for the warning; I'll be sure to diligently inspect my order this year.

Standards have definitely fallen at DA. Last year they sent me a mislabelled rose two times!!!

They also sent me plants with two twiggy, 4 inch canes (Maid Marion). It was meant to be a memorial to my Grandmother..of course it did not survive.

Their customer service is great. But I got tired of the twiggy canes and of calling for replacements. My replacement for maid Marion was also a pathetic twiggy thing. (Tamora since they did not have Maid Marion ). I planted thevpoor dear..but we shall see.

No more DA bareroots for me. I love their roses, but something has gone wrong in their quality control department. Saving the box as a momento of a bygone era.

Thanks for responding. Over the years I have lost some of my David Austins and I always thought it was something I was doing wrong. Now that I have heard that there are other people out there that have had some problems with quality I feel somewhat vindicated. 10 yrs ago I ordered Crown Princess Margerita and it did wonderfully, such a beauty. It did die last year, I don't know why. I don't know the life span of these roses.

Anyway I had hoped to replace it but it's the one with the gall. I don't think I want roses from a nursery that has gall.

Janetta -- A healthy rose can live for many decades.
Of course something can kill them . . . But we often find roses that are upwards of a century old -- they don't have a limited life span.

The one fork in the first picture looks like they pruned off the outward-oriented branch and kept the part that continued crossing over the cane next door - the complete opposite of what was desired. And the brown "roots" wrapping around the bush well above the normal rose root level look quite a bit like Armillaria rhizomorphs. So if you plant this bush(es) there and do not infest your soil with what looks very much like a crown gall in the one picture maybe you can still get some nice honey fungus doing there.

And then give up and move to an apartment or condo, after you can't get anything to grow without it getting galled - or diminished and killed by honey fungus - the list of familiar plants apparently unaffected by this widespread, giant-growing* pathogen consists more or less entirely of yew and turf grass.

A few years ago I lost a big-leaf magnolia to honey fungus. After many years the tree had gotten some size to it, had started to bloom well - and then the entire top died completely one year, just like that. I only had to bend down and look at the crown to see honey fungus death tentacles creeping up from the soil.

*Individual Armillaria found to be occupying acres of woodland periodically make it into the media

In addition to the problems covered above, I would suggest a close look at the photo with VID A in the lower left hand corner.

The uppermost of the two canes has a really bad break where the cambium is vertically split from a horizontal split and the blackened cane there is going to (probably) go further into a canker and gird and kill the cane.

Possibly the canker won't develop if temperatures are high in your area....at a certain level of heat, canker fungi seem to be suppressed. But that cane isn't going to make years of pretty roses.

All in all, quite an indictment of their quality control.

To say the least.

Just received an email (responding to my concerns) from D. A. saying that they would get the replacements right out. I think I will call to ask what they are doing to insure the plants aren't infected with gall. I really don't want to spend time on some roses just to end up losing them.

Who might have Crown Princess Margareta and Night Owl own root?

I've contemplated trying Austin since they began offering bare root own roots. Most seem satisfied with their orders. Yet every year posts like this of diseased & damaged plants dissuade me from supporting this supplier. Agree with Jeri to destroy these. So sorry for your disappointment, Janetta! Roses Unlimited carries both roses. Click the Alphabetical List in the lefthand column on their homepage. www.rosesunlimitedownroot.com

I was about to write that those roots being Armillaria is taking it a bit too far since its common for roots to grow that high up if the plants were grown with the bud union underground, until I noticed the white 'gunk' which looks suspiciously like mycellium.. I still believe it's far fetched since those roots look pretty normal rose roots to me but.. One can tell roots from rhizomorphs by the 'feel' of their outer shell which is plasticky and their whitish internal. If one scratches the bark of the thicker roots, a black net of rhizomorphs and a coat of white mycellium is a tell tale sign of root fungus; maybe armillaria, maybe not. Do DA grow their roses in fields which used to be woodlands? I would alert them to the possibility that they may have Armillaria infected fields if I were you since this can be much more serious than crown gall. On the other hand, these could well be real roots and the gunk might be mold developed in storage although I've never seen something like this in any bareroot I have bought.

Honey fungus

I can't find my pics from last year. Will look again tonight. I recall that the white gunk was only on the ends of the cut canes, I don't think I saw it anywhere else. As I said the whole lot was also slimy. The roots were packed in big plastic bags with no packing material, they were wet and the weather had been unseasonably hot the week that they were shipped. The gunk sloughed off when rubbed.

I soaked them in a bath of with a splash of bleach, my normal routine. I did a bit of pruning before planting of both canes and roots and only saw healthy wood.

This was an order of 64 roses. They all grew quite well and I have no complaints on the apparent health of my plants.

I placed an order from DAR a few days ago and added to it yesterday. I asked questions... I was wondering about RRD and the person I talked with said that their bare root roses are grown in Arizona, and that isn't a problem there. I also mentioned this thread and asked about problems with quality control. She said that sometimes things do slip through, but they do replace those roses.

My last experience with them was several years ago. I purchased 3 own-root Crown Princess Margareta. Those rose roots were so long, I had to dig 20 inch deep holes just to fit them in, and there was no extra room on bottom. Each one had 5 huge canes. I am hoping for similar results this year. I get my roses much later in the year, so maybe that makes a difference. I will post pics of my new roses when they get here in April.

Rebecca

If any of it is rhizomorphs it won't be attached to the rose in the same way as the plant's own roots are.

I ordered an 'AUSmixture' through a local independent garden center, they called me to come for it after they potted it up - so it cost over 30 dollars. It is a spindly thing with all the canes coming out of one side of the stock (in other words, with half a top). And so far I am seeing little sign of sprouting (established roses here have several inches of new growth by now - in fact the other day I saw a flower bud on one!).

Thankyou Cynthia

I just got 5 DA own root bare root. They are the biggest own root I've ever gotten. I asked DA to ship USPS this time (3/3-3/7) since a grafted Munstead Woods took 2 weeks last spring shipped UPS. I think they look good. "Teasing Georgia" is the smallest, but probably not for long.

Sheila's garden. · More Info

Thanks for posting that, Sheila!!! Seeing those makes me realize I will be digging to China for the ones I have coming! Thank you, too for the heads up on USPS. That is so much better for me. I didn't know we had a choice and I never even thought of asking. The mailman comes early in the day. UPS comes after dark some days.

Those roses look great!! And you are right... Teasing Georgia is gonna WOW you!!! She dies to the dirt in zone 4, and comes back every year to do this... 5' tall and gangbuster roses!

Have fun dirt digging!!!

Rebecca

Notice there's an arching habit starting to be hinted at, where it doesn't die back 'AUSbaker' makes a fountain - I just planted one that spent last year in a garden center pot yet still managed to get something like 5' across.

I planted it against a fence, to be used as a climber.

Help! This post just made my decision even worse! I'm ordering Munstead wood and DA is out of own root plants so it doesn't matter now if I order from them or Witherspoon rose Culture. The price and shipping is about the same, but I don't know who generally has better bare root grafts. Any further help is appreciated. T

I have never had a bad plant from Witherspoon.

Just wanted to update on the crown gall problem with DA. They have since replaced the plants and they looked fine except for again there was some mold on one of the canes. I think that it is more of a shipping problem than a DA problem. Heat and moisture.

Anyway when I called them I also asked if the crown gall was in the field. Their response was that they "do their best" to keep diseases out of the field. Unfortunately I did not save their email to me or I would share it. So we will see how these roses fare. They are looking pretty good. All kinds of shoots coming out and I never know what to prune off. I know to cut the inward facing shoots but still, I just hate cutting too much. I don't grow many roses because of my climate on the central Calif. coast. If it's not mildew and botrytis then it's thrips and rose slugs. I have a beautiful Marilyn Monroe that's on fortuniana and she is 5-6' (and would be just as wide if not for a fence) that I have sprayed and sprayed and still every year the botrytis comes back. Just so disheartening.

Next time I think I will take Cynthia's advice and order from Roses Unlimited. Over the years I have heard nothing but great things about them.

Thanks for everyone's replies,

Janet

I ordered from DA this year. HUGE plants. I ordered in October for spring delivery. Massive plants and I'm happy. I tried to get the ones that he is dumping. I much prefer own root plants and do much better with them but some Austins are painfully weak. IMHO.

Susan

I received my 6 grafted Perdita from David Austin this week. I was going to share photos, but it was so horribly windy here, I just didn't want to fight that and try to keep the canes wet. They were all huge with multiple canes and clean as a whistle. I had them shipped United States Postal Service and they did... 2-day priority. There was no mold on them from shipping and they were moist and in great shape, which is more than I can say for myself after shoveling all that dirt over 6 roses planted 18" deep. Bring on the heating pads!!!