Long story, so bear with me here. In early March I purchased 6 dry-root Meidiland White Groundcover roses for a front flower bed. They arrived about 3 weeks ago in great shape, on a Wednesday, to be precise. We were closing on a rural property purchase south of here on that Friday.

One rather large, added conmplication to this scenario. I was also in the middle of planting a 25'x12' of 90 Vinca plants & a smaller bed of variegated pachysandra the day they arrived. I was reaching the exhaustion stage on those two projects, to be quite honest. So I set the dry-root roses in my side garden, in a very shady spot, opened the plastic bag they shipped in. I've never had problems holding over rose plantings in the past. What could go wrong, right? I misted the tops and wet down the roots thoroughly. I wet them down the next day, too, and on

Friday before we drove down to Rockdale for the closing. I knew it would Saturday before I could plant them. When we returned home from the closing, around 3ish, I went out to mist down the roses in the bag again and discoved the bag was ripped open and the roots and tops were completely dried out and not looking so green as they had been. Aaaaaaack! Mr. Squirrel, no doubt, as he gets into that garden daily. I was so angry! I immediately set the roses in a bucket of water until I could plant them the next morning, knowing they might have been exposed to the air all day long! I feared they might all die!

My husband helped me dig and prep the holes Sat. morning. We followed the planting instructions to a "T". Almost immediately in the couple days following planting, the branches began to brown, almost all the way to the bottom. My heart sank, as I thought the squirrel behavior had done them in for sure. The rest of the week they put out no shoots. Waited 2 more weeks and still no new shoots pushing out where they should be. Sigh. They are dead after all!

Today, about 3 weeks in the ground, I inspected the roses while planting some Asian Larkspur 'Gentian Blue' in 5 pots around the roses. Lo and behold, I discovered shoots coming out at the dirt level (and lower) off the roots! Shoots on 3 out of 6 noted so far, so I'm holding out hope all will rebound from the mishap. We were so happy they are still alive!! Not only will I not lose all that money (over $100), but I'll get my roses in that bed, purchased to help choke out the weeds the weed mesh cloth isn't so good at killing. I want some added beauty and scent in that bed. It's right under my livingroom window!

Don't ya just love happy endings!? :)