Personally, I wouldn't do it -- unless some of those canes or roots were damaged. Moreover, we've never mounded with soil -- though we did with mulch on a few occasions when we were planting in the middle of a hot, dry, Santa Ana wind condition.
But of course -- Thy conditions are not mine. (And I probably haven't planted a commercially budded rose in 20 years.)

Cutting back the tops and roots additionally at potting time helps retail garden center operators deal with the problem of the roses overwhelming display beds before being sold, in those cases where these do not sell right away after being set out.

Because just as with other shrubs cutting back either the tops or the roots has a temporary dwarfing effect.

Something I would think a home gardener would not be looking for.

The specific vulnerability I am aware of with grafted roses versus own root is the up-in-the-air scions dying during cold spells, leaving the in-the-ground stocks to sprout and replace them. Since kinds chosen for use as stocks are usually comparatively tough and vigorous I would think if anything grafted plants would be less prone to drought than rooted cuttings, except where the cutting raised plants were long established.

I think early planting and more watering would have done the trick erasmus. They love water. I wouldn't cut out canes.

Thank you. I don't remember when I got my plants this spring but it was fairly early. Thinking it over, I only lost three. Still have six. I had ordered before from Palatine in the fall and most of those plants did well. So my Palatine order came in Friday. I'm going to plant them today. Have to decide on whether to cut out any canes...I have never done that before. Hate to lose any canes. I think one thing I can do better than what I did in spring is plant deep enough. I am getting sort of old to do a lot of digging but my soil is light and drains fast. STuff planted deeper stays moister.

The biggest trouble I have with bare roots is the "Black Finger of Death", tentatively identified as Verticilium Wilt for lack of a better term. Some companies are rampant with it (starting with David Austin and Jackson & Perkins in my experience). It begins with blackening of the ends of the canes and proceeds rapidly down the canes (within 1-2 weeks sometimes) killing off everything down to the graft and often the whole rose. It seems to be more common for those of us in cold zones, so my hypothesis is that something in the cold storage fosters it, but in several discussions with Rachel at Palatine about this issue it isn't a matter of cold storage alone since they plant out their own budded roses after cold storage and don't have this problem. It isn't just my yard having VW rampant in it either, since my own root roses almost never show this pattern however much I might whack or not whack off the canes on arrival.

You didn't mention if you lost these roses during their first summer or over your cold period erasmus (I hesitate to call it "winter" in zone 8, looking out my window at a brisk 12 degrees F already in November). For me this VW pattern only seems to happen in the first summer after planting, and if they survive the summer any additional death after that is from winterkill and not this Black Finger disease. Occasionally my bare roots from certain companies will not come out of dormancy all summer and seem to be fundamentally stunted and/or dead on arrival (this was epidemic from J&P a few years ago), but mostly VW happens after they arrive looking fine. I see it occasionally even in the best of companies, and some roses seem to be more susceptible to it for whatever reason even among the same shipment from the same company. I can't say for sure it's VW, but that term sounds more official than the Black Finger of Death. The only treatment I've found is to prune ahead of it aggressively if you see this blackening happening, and from the more susceptible companies or body bags I do a preventative prune of most of the canes to avoid as much VW as possible before it starts, sanitizing my pruners of course along the way. Still I can lose as many as 30-40% of my bare roots planted in their first summers depending on where I order them from.

Cynthia

Hi All -

At Jackson & Perkins we guarantee all Jackson & Perkins plant products to be high quality, true to type, shipped properly, and to perform as advertised. If your plant has received our recommended care and doesn't perform to your satisfaction, notify us and we will work to resolve the problem.

We are also proud to be a member of the National Clean Plant Network. This network was created to protect US crops from the spread of economically harmful pests and diseases.

Thanks!

www.jacksonandperkins.com

Glad to hear your experiences with certain bare roots, Cynthia. I am not thinking they died from VW though it's possible. It was their first summer. I'm glad I'm not the only one who loses some bare root plants, though am sorry you lost some. To me they're trickier than own roots but sometimes perform very well.

I got my Palatine plants planted. I did prune out some weaker canes and thin stems as Palatine recommended. Re-reading what you wrote, embothrium, it sounds like you were saying that only commercial garden centers might need to prune out canes. Is that what you were saying? Because I don't think Palatine would put these instructions to prune out some canes in their shipments to home gardeners if it was mainly beneficial to nurseries. I would think most of their customers would be home gardeners. And like I said, Pickering advised the same thing. For one thing, some of these wonderful looking plants I got from Austin and from Palatine have quite a few canes. If you look at body bag plants, usually they don't have five or six or eight canes. Usually maybe three or four. It seems plausible to me that when a plant is dug up and shipped , before the roots get established it is hard for the plant to support a lot of top growth. If the top growth is a little more in balance with the roots, maybe it'll be more likely to make it.

When I transplant a rose in my garden I reduce the top growth. Palatine instructions also say to get rid of any sprouts on canes. Same reason...the roots aren't established yet and the plant will dry out with too much top growth.

Jackson & Perkins, I'm glad to hear you have such good customer service. I think David Austin does also. When my plants arrived I called them up to report a big split on a main cane on one plant, just to go on record about it in case the plant went downhill. I said, " I just want you to know." and the lady said, " No, no , no , no we will send you a new plant." So they did. That was The Ancient Mariner. Both my new one and original one didn't make it. So disappointed but I feel sure it wasn't their fault.

Thanks to the Jackson and Perkins professional that chimed in here - it's good to see you responding to concerns and having a gardener-friendly policy. My experience has been that sometimes that policy is not equally applied in gardener-friendly ways in some circumstances or by some customer service representatives. I will give two examples that suggest some adaptations that might be needed in your policy implementation.

About 3-4 years ago was the time that many of us here on Gardenweb noted that bare roots from J&P were particularly slow to come out of dormancy. In my case, they weren't necessarily dead canes, they just never showed new growth buds or leafed out. I believe in giving roses every chance I can to survive, since i don't like burdening companies with refunds unless necessary, so I waited a good 3 months and about 3 of the 12 roses I ordered did finally break dormancy. Unfortunately, by the time I'd asked for a refund for the 9 that never broke dormancy at all I was told it was beyond the 60 (or is it 90?) day guarantee and a refund was not possible.

The next year, I did alert the company within the 60 day period (perhaps late June) that a rose was dead, and the representative's response was that since the rose in question was not rated as hardy to zone 5 it would not be replaced. I totally understand that policy as applied to winter survival, and I would never ask for any replacement because of dying after a zone 5 winter regardless of what it was rated. However, the hardiness of a rose shouldn't have any impact on the rose coming out of dormancy and surviving in its first summer.

in recent years I have had prompt and effective refunds for roses that fail to thrive from Jackson & Perkins but I can no longer order any rose that I'd want from your offerings or give the roses a chance to thrive beyond a month or two because of these policies. I fully admit that I've had the creeping cane death in roses from any bare root company, but some companies are routinely more susceptible to it and yours is among those. I can't pinpoint what is the difference in the cultural practices among the bare root companies so I don't know what to expect, but there is something systematically different. So I don't think there's a policy change that could help with this latter issue, but the first two issues above could be addressed by adapting the policies or allowing the representatives discretion in responding to the situation at hand.

I appreciate your willingness to provide input to these discussions!

Erasumus, back to your original topic, I'm glad this wasn't a systemic problem but a question about best rose practices in general. i tend not to prune most bare roots before planting unless I see problems, for fear of creating more injuries that introduce possible pathogens to enter at the cut point. I agree that Palatine's advice is based on a solid foundation, and I'd be curious to see what their rationale is for that practice.

Cynthia

Cynthia, I've had a similar experience as you with The Black Finger of Death. It has happened with body bag roses, so I don't get those anymore. It happened with two on-line companies, one bare root and the other potted. One of those companies I've ordered from a number of times and have not had that problem with their other plants. I have not had TBFoD from roses from RU, DA, Edmunds, High Country Roses, J&P or Heirloom. A couple of plants I bought as plants from a nursery and they did great in a pot but when they were planted the garden they developed TBFoD. There is one spot in my yard that is just bare dirt after trying 4 different rose bushes there that within a month or two developed TBFoD, and even irises in that spot. Funny that plants even one foot away from that spot seem to do fine. I should just dig out that spot and put the soil into a landfill I suppose. I'm pretty sure that I have VWilt in my yard because the aster Professor Anton Kippenberg has the typical symptoms of growing the first part of the season, and then collapsing once the flowers form, and tomatoes suddenly collapse in the middle of summer.

There is something that blackens my poppy plants and larkspurs. I wonder if it's VW. Have grown poppies from seed a few times and they look great till they're about to bloom, then turn black and almost melt away. A long time ago poppies did fine here and larkspurs didn't have any lower blackening.

I emailed Rachel at Palatine about the cane pruning advice. Will see if she chimes in.

To the Jackson and Perkins person, what is your opinion about pruning canes before planting? Cynthia, I too worry about something getting into a cut. But I do a lot of cutting at spring pruning and mostly they do ok. Don't know if the cold would be more favorable to a pathogen. Might stay wetter at times.

I have read Winter pruning allows pathogens to injure Tea roses (not that they like any pruning) and is best avoided. I think the thought was to have less canker by not pruning in wet weather.

Hmmm, maybe I should go seal the cuts with something.

Both newly planted and established roses love and need to be pruned. New bareroot and ownroot roses need to be cut back to 4” from the top of the graft union for bareroot budded roses and 4” from the top of the root swirl for ownroot roses at the time of planting. Do not fertilize BR or OR roses at planting, wait until the roses have 4” or more of new growth. Established rose should be cut back 1/3 in the spring when the new buds begin to swell. Always remove dead canes and prune for shape at the same time. The biggest threat to newly planted roses in the very early spring is cold temperature (below 28 degrees for 6 hours or more day or night) and don’t forget the chill index numbers a 35 degree night with a 15mph wind can easily drop the feels like temperature down enough to freeze new plants.. The second largest threat is the roses drying out either by loosing water faster than they can take it up due to pour roots, lack of soil moisture, low humidity, or drying winds. Rose soil should be moist to the touch but not wet. A freeze damaged rose will progressively die back from the tip of the cane until all of the green is gone.

It is very difficult to diagnose plant problem without being on site and having all of the facts but if you are planting early season BR or OR plants and will cut the rose back at planting and tip the roots, water completely, and mound it with soil until only an inch of the plant is showing you will have the best chance for success.

Hope this helps!

Thank you, J&P! What do you think about my worry of pathogens getting into the cut canes since they have been cut at a wetter time of year? Should I seal the cuts with something? Looking at them today they already look a little healed over. I don't know if J&P offers bare roots in fall or not but Palatine does. It has mostly worked out well for me in the past to plant in fall.