Here in Nashville there is one nursery I like that only charges 28 for DA . They don't have the newest ones and they tend to sell fast as landscapers scoop them up by the dozen. 5 miles away in the rich part of town ( I mean rich wealthy country music star part ) they sell for for 60. I almost fell over when I saw. I almost told a couple that was buying one to go down the road to the other place but didn't want to offend them. I will never ever pay 60$ for a David Austin. but some people do .

Its crazy but maybe some people are swayed by the beauty in person .

I think that's a bit of a scam :-) I doubt the wholesale cost of DA's warrants that much of a mark up and they are just playing on customer demand.

My nursery doesn't sell bare root roses. Or bare root anything :-) They do bring in large quantities of bare root plants in late winter, including roses, but everything gets potted before it hits the sales floor. This means they can extend the sales season well beyond the time frame typical to bare root stock and line the plants out in the sales yard so you can see exactly what you are getting.

Standard roses sell for $29.99 and DA's for $39.99. And this is a very high end nursery in my area.

Lily Me either! I know what you mean, but I couldn't have kept my big mouth shut. Some people actually would get offended, but I don't care to offend in general much anymore. LOL

Witchy , one time at lowes a lady was buying sunflower seed , and I mentioned that right down at tractor supply she could get twice as much for the same price. She definitely was not interested.. so I just kinda keep quiet now . Oh well!

Lilyfinch, if someone was nice enough to tell me I could get the same plant for cheaper down the street, I'd be happy!

Of course, if I know the quality is lower or if it's a smaller plant, or the price difference is not that big, then I may think that it's not a bid deal to spend a little more to buy it at the 'fancier' place.

Bayarea_girl, I do agree that the drought has put many of our local nurseries in a tough spot. My preferred nursery was Navlets in Walnut Creek. They had a great selection of plants, including unique ones not sold in the big box stores. I hadn't been able to go for a while, only to find out later that they were taken over by another company.

Can you travel up here to Idaho, MAD? My favorite nursery charges $28.95-$32.95 (the newer ones are $32.95) for five gallon David Austin roses in the DA pot with proper DA tags. If you reserve them before Mar 31, they are 10% off. The roses will be safely placed in a special greenhouse until you are ready to pick them up. I think it's a great deal. But I also think that the Bay Area has high prices which are in line with the high cost of living there. And I'm sure, as others have said, that the drought has affected prices, too. Diane

So now you've raised a new question in my mind.. How does one tell the difference between a container-grown rose and potted up bare root rose? And should they be handled differently?

Kitasei, a potted up bare root is a bare root that you just put in a pot with some potting soil. If you pull the rose out of the pot you won’t see many feeding roots. You normally see this type around the bare root season (Jan-April). When a bare root rose leaves out, a nursery needs to pot it ASAP.

A container rose is just a potted up bare root that has been in a pot for some time and has a pretty good amount of feeding roots. Helen

Thanks, bayarea girl, but should one be wary of buying a potted up bareroot in stead of a container grown rose? Is this the practice of big box stores vs nurseries or do they all do it? I remember making a point of going to a nursery to buy container grown roes a few years ago (Roseland in Acushnet, MA) because I wanted them to be as large as possible that season. If they were potted bare roots I would probably have done just as well to order bareroots from Roses Unlimited? Now I'm thinking that the only container grown rose is one you buy in the fall...

MAD, I hope you are OK with the additional questions from kitasei :)

Kitasei, I think Roses Unlimited sells own-root container roses and doesn't sell bare root roses.

The reason people choose a bare root rose because the rose is grafted on a root stock (ex: Dr. Huey) which has been grown in the field for two years, so you have a rose with a mature two-year root system which often gives you a lot of flowers in the first year. However, bare roots are only available for a few months (Jan-April) because once the bare roots develop leaves, they need to be potted right away. Now they turn into potted bare roots.

Many local nurseries just skip the bare roots (without soil) sale and pot them all up and sell them as potted bare roots because they need additional setup (ex: freezer to keep the bare roots from waking up and developing leaves) to sell roses as bare roots.

If you want to buy a rose with a well developed feeding root system and see its flower and smell its fragrance, you can buy around Fall. That is a bare root rose which was put in a pot around Jan and has been taken care of by a nursery until Fall. However, you will pay more for the work and care that the nursery put into it.

When I just started out planing my first rose a few years ago, if someone sold me a bare root rose to plant, I would be scare to plant it because the bare root didn't look alive to me at that time. On the other hand, if a nursery took the same bare root, put in a pot with some potting soil and waited for it to develop some leaves then sold it to me then I would feel more confident to plant it.

I noticed you are in zone 6b, so if you buy bare roots, make sure to follow the instruction of your zone and bury the grafted part deep enough to protect it from the cold.

Own root roses are just rose cuttings that were rooted, so they are very small compared to bare roots. They are grown in small containers and called own-root container roses. Their development is about 2-3 years behind bare roots so they need more patient and care. However, they are great for mail order because they are small enough to be shipped through the mail so you can order some rare roses that your local nurseries don't often carry any time of the year.

There are also roses that are grafted on Fortuniana root stock which often are sold in 1-gallon pots and can be mail ordered (ex: K & M roses https://www.kandmroses.com/ ).

This is just a rough idea, other more experienced growers can give more inputs. If you need more info, just post a new topic and many experienced rose growers here will answer it for you.

Helen

Own root roses are not limited to potted. My nursery buys both grafted and own root roses bare root. Grafting or own root cuttings are just a propagation method. Bare root or containerized roses are a sales presentation. One does not necessarily have anything to do with the other.

That's a good input gardengal. I'm still waiting for my own root Boscobel from DA and wonder will it be shipped as bare root or in a pot.

I think in general when people say "bare root" they often mean bare root grafted on a root stock. That's why when I saw Regan lists some own roots for their bare root order, I wondered whether those own roots will be shipped as bare roots or in pots. So now we have "grafted bare root" and "own root bare root" :) Helen

Diane, If only I could travel there and bring back plants! It sounds like a really good nursery. I wish my local nursery could have stayed in business. They were very good about taking care of their plants and would hold bought/sold ones for customers if we couldn't take it home right away.

Kitasei, I think BayAreaGirl and GardenGal answered really well. I would like to add that band size and gallon size roses are usually pot-culture roses (started from cuttings) and they should come well rooted. I've come to expect that it's pretty much a given that most places will sell you a potted up bare root (grafted or ownroot) early in the year. These will generally come in 2-3gal pots. I think you can tell they were originally bare roots from how thick the cane/crown/top growth is compared to the size of the pot they're in. Fully container grown roses of that size would not be able to thrive in that tight space. The top growth reflects the size of the roots, or in this case - the size the roots used to be. Bare roots can stay in those pots for a while because they need to regrow their roots, but they should quickly outgrow them. Now, if I saw a rose for sale in a 5gal (or larger) pot, then that would lead me to believe that it's been in the pot for a long while and has a big root system.

Bayarea_girl, I'm thinking they'll ship bare root own-roots (unless it's super late, then who knows). I know Edmunds ships own-root bare roots and so does David Austin.

MAD, I was surprised when I checked my nursery's rose list and saw the prices earlier today--they've dropped DA prices to $24.99-28.99 for 5 gallon pots, plus 10% discount. I wonder what brought that about, but it's a nice surprise. Plus some of the cheaper DA roses are the newer ones. They have a terrific business and by the end of August, almost all the roses are gone. In fact this nursery has been in business since 1930. Their hundreds of clematis are raised locally, and the peony selection is huge, too, not to mention a bazillion perennials and annuals. So you could acquire far more than roses if you visited. Diane

Talking about DA roses, if someone is looking for a DA rose that is beautiful in a pot and blooms all the time, Young Lycidas is one of the candidates. Because its large blooms weight down the canes, it's perfect to be planted in a pot so the flowers can cascade around the pot. Here are some blooms I just cut this morning. It's the only rose blooming right now in my garden. Helen

I have my polite, but droopy, Young Lycidas resting on a few nearby roses. His neighbors don't mind, and as he ages, he gets more self supportive. That's a beautiful bouquet, Helen. I wish I had something blooming in my freezing cold garden right now. Diane

I ordered own root bare root Young Lycidas from Regan. I normally wouldn't spend so much on one plant, with shipping and all, but I really love the pictures of him.

Bayarea_girl, that's a pretty bouquet, I'm always on the lookout for good container roses that aren't minis. How big are the flowers? Is it always that red? Most pictures I've seen are a bluish-pink, but that's a really lovely shade of red/pink.

Thanks MAD. The average flower size is 4". Because the weather is cold right now so it has that color. Once the weather gets warmer, it will have a lighter shade. Helen