I think you need more info from the tenants and a better description. Were there dying branches? Did the gardener say both bushes had died?

Were the two bushes right next to each other?

If you are reporting something that just took place, this is August and not a good time for someone to transplant a rose bush.

What went missing last time?

You have every right to be upset if these rosebushes were stolen. But the eyewitness account of one tenant who is busy and maybe not into plants should be corroborated with more, to make sure that there wasn't RRD or some other affliction that might make removing the plants a logical choice.

To me, If I was renting, I would not dig up any plants. Did he replant something there? To dig up a rose that old required a big hole and the roots would be spread out a bit. Do you know what rose it was and if it was grafted?

This took place about 5 months ago. Last time he took a fig tree. My tenants water the garden area. One week the roses were blooming. They were trimmed to the base the next week. The following week, the base was removed. By base I mean entire root structure. They are on opposite sides of the garden. At least 20 feet apart. Adjacent plants are green and have always been green. When I mean gardeners this is your typical lawn care person service in an urban city. They are there to cut the lawn and only minor work. Tell me more about what I should look for.

Buford. nothing was replanted. Some adjacent mini roses were stolen too.

Lucille, the tenants watch those plants but they are afraid of confrontations. IMO if they say they were blooming then removed in a span of three weeks then I believe them.

ok, so the yard service guys, not the tenants took the bushes. When I dig up a rose there is a huge hole there. But there is no way to tell if it was dug up because it was dead or if they wanted to take it. I would confront the gardener. Tell him he has to produce a picture of the dying rose bush that he dug up.

That totally stinks. However, from a lawn/garden service perspective, could it be that they don't love roses like we do and they figured, hey, let's just take these thorny things out. It takes too much work - pruning, fertilized, treating (if need be), etc.? If it were me, (as completely upset as I would be) I would come at the guy/gal with a very concerned attitude about what happened to the bushes, ask why would you take out a large part of the landscape and without permission? Any landscaper I have worked with have always asked specifically for permission to remove anything. Since the bushes are already gone (sadly) perhaps you can get the landscapers to attempt to replace them at their expense? I'd also fire them for sure.

Jasminerose, what a terrible story. What is wrong with people????

Oh yeah, and there's Angie's List that you can write a review (or read others' reviews) on the company if you feel like it.

I am so glad I am my own "gardener". This is horrible. What is wrong with some people?

If the roses had such sentimental value to you, when was the last that you visited them and went nostalgic over them before the removal incident? Last year? The year before?

A 50 year old rose bush that had been cut to the ground, then later removed (STOLEN), would need the expert care of an experienced rosarian to just survive the experience yet alone re-establish and thrive in its new home.

A cut and trim 'landscaper,' usually does not have the skill or knowledge base to even cut grass or trim bushes correctly, yet alone successfully do the deed you scribed. Anybody with a lawnmower and wheel barrow calls themselves a PROFESSIONAL LANDSCAPER today. If you have such a landscaper you got what you paid for.

No tenant gave you a heads-up before the roses were removed? Your story sounds fishy.

What are you going to do now? Go through the expense of a legal case against the landscaper? You would have to prove, through eyewitnesses, that the deed was in fact committed by the accused.

Hire a new landscaper, give specific, exact instructions as to what their duties are down to every minute detail. Monitor them carefully, every week. Replant the empty spots with a good, new rose variety. Get over it.

Absentee landlords as you say you are, as a class, do not have their fingers on the pulses of their properties. You have to live there to keep up on things. This is my observation going by the drastic change in my own old, city neighborhood. Most of my neighboring properties that were once meticulously maintained by resident owners are woefully neglected by the "I don't care," attitude of the tenants and the absentee landlords who are merely collecting revenue, and doing barely the minimum in their property management and landscaping. Gabage in, garbage out.

I would not confront the "gardener", I would just fire him, and report the problem to the company he works for (if any), and the Better Business Bureau, and Angie's List.

It is also true that if you are not personally keeping an eye on your property, and visiting it frequently, bad things will happen. Our house was a rental property (duplex) for about 20 years, between the time my DH's grandparents died, and the time my DH and I moved in. It was at that time owned by my parents-in-law. My FIL was over here 2-3 times a week, and did all of the gardening himself. Consequently, when we moved in the garden was still full of roses planted by 3 generations of my DH's family.

Jackie

Fifty year old rose bushes are almost certain to have been budded plants, unless they were miniatures or something someone rooted for you. There weren't many sources for bare root roses in the mid 1960s. Of course it could be possible they were moved to another garden (perhaps even the gardener's) though it is probably much more likely he tired of being snagged and ripped by them, or felt they required too much maintenance for the time he could spend and the price he was being paid. That I have observed and heard of for years in the Los Angeles area. Excuses like, "it was sick", "it was over grown", "it was 'old'" have been common to justify why something that had grown successfully suddenly went missing. Many "landscape maintenance" companies there refuse to touch roses because of OSHA, time, customer complaints, required chemicals and many other "reasons". People tend to be "particular" about their roses. It often isn't worth the aggravation to touch them.

Plus, are there any issues in that area such as Rose Rosette or Chilli Thrips? Perhaps there were problems with the two plants the tenants weren't aware of? The gardener MAY actually know what he's doing and might have taken care of a problem he observed. I think it may be a good idea to inquire from him why he removed them before accusing him of malfeasance. And, your tenants don't like confrontation... how likely is it there actually were issues with the roses they didn't alert you to and the gardener is being blamed to divert your irritation away from them and to the gardener?

I've never used any kind of service for my house; but I would assume that if there was a problem with a plant, tree or lawn that the gardener/landscaper would give me a heads up or talk to me about it. I would be really mad if someone just removed a plant without letting me check it out. Now if it is an outright case of theft, that is just ridiculous & seems very odd. Would it not be less work to spend on average about $20-30 on a very healthy sized potted rose? Then to go through the labour of digging it up. Is your gardener working for himself or a company? Because time is money - if they work for themselves it would seem odd to spend that amount of time to do that. If they work by the hour that's a different story. Are these roses a prized possession/hard to find or that fantastic someone would want them? You mentioned they were there to do basic care & mowing, are they authorized to do large pruning & removal? Anyways, if you have had past issue with them maybe it is time to find a new gardener. But it seems unlikely you could prove if they were stolen or not. Good luck with it all though. I know there are cases of stolen plants. There was a family I saw in the paper that woke up one morning and found a hole in the front lawn instead of their tree. During the night someone had dug up a 20 foot tree & removed it. The hole they left was about 5 feet. And they had backed up a truck onto the lawn and wrecked a bunch of the lawn too. Seems crazy, it's not like plants and trees are that expensive to risk getting caught for theft & vandalism.

I've encountered issues with "gardeners" ripping out plants they don't like, for a variety of reasons, as well as the excuses I listed above. I've also encountered outright theft of roses and other plants. Years ago, my sister's father in law planted all of the sego palms he had propagated for years into his front landscape. Segos are NOT "inexpensive", particularly for mature sizes. A few weeks later, someone removed all of them from their front yard while they were away on a cruise, to the tune of many thousands of dollars in plants. I had people dig up as well as steal potted roses from my old Newhall garden and that was secured within a guard gated private community.

@Halloblondie - ah, but....one thing that everyone has overlooked is that a MATURE and/or rare, fully grown specimen can very well be quite expensive to aquire. Stealing one, if there is a buyer ready to shell out hard cash for an "instant" garden, can be quite lucrative and well worth the time and effort of an unscrupulous individual.

There used to be a wonderful nursery about 30 minutes from my home. It had absolutely everything you could possibly desire to grow in our climate. And their plants tended to be huge specimen. I purchased a smaller crab apple from them for nearly $300. It was a small plant by their standards at about 7' or 8' tall. But they also had massive trees, much taller than their building for $1000's. I can imagine a huge rose plant may be worth a lot of money. And lets face it, people steal and even murder for less than that.

I don't know about elsewhere, but in the Los Angeles area, a fifteen gallon rose, standard commercial variety, can run anywhere from $60 to $80 each. Often climbers, well grown to large size on a trellis, will sell in the $75 - $150 range, depending upon where the nursery is located. In beach communities (high rent districts), from local nurseries, it's the higher pricing. Inland valley nurseries sell usually for the lower. Of course, specialty plants (rarer palms, larger fruit trees, rarer ornamental trees, etc.) are priced higher.

The guy is a $40 per month "gardener." If he doesn't do weeds around the area, why would he care about roses. I have no doubt he took them. For some of you it may be inconsequential but given the street value and what he could charge another customer I have no doubt the took them. Previously, a mature tree disappeared during a period where the property was vacant. I'm sure the street value on that was high.