Oh, Jackie, good luck with your wonderful Anna Olivier. I hope you get plenty of rain and it settles in just fine. I had some tough roses in Alaska that a landscaper dug out with a backhoe and they sat unplanted for 2 weeks. I dragged the roses to a spot I could plant them and they survived and did well. I'm sure the rose will look fabulous there.

I certainly hope that Anne Olivier flourishes for you after transplant. I’d love to see a pic of the root ball that you planted if you happen to have it.

Jackie, what an impressive effort! If anyone can achieve success with AO’s move, you and your DH can. Thank you for sharing the photos and descriptions of each step. I know I’m not the only one on the forum that is learning a lot from your experiences. If it helps to hear it, I recently cut back and dug up a 20-year-old Stanwell Perpetual (just before an unexpected heat wave hit 😱) so that I could pass along my mature and particularly good clone of this tough beauty to a forum member in my area. Stanwell looked like he had succumbed after he was potted up in a 25 gallon nursey pot, but just when I believed he had become a mass of skeleton canes, shoots sprang to life and bloomed. Good as new! I am keeping fingers crossed for your AO. She’ll look fantastic on that arch! Carol

Build a shade structure over it and cover that with bed sheets which you should spray to moisten a few times a day so you raise the humidity around the plant, keep it cooler and hydrated. It CAN work IF you prevent the plant from drying out. Until it has re established its root system, that is most easily accomplished by misting the plant and keeping it cooler, darker and damper. For smaller plants, that's accomplished by mounding soil or mulch over it as you would a newly planted bare root. I've known people to literally drape the plants with old tee shirts they kept sprayed and wet when possible. Good luck!

What a good idea! Thanks - we have lots of old large tomato cages - I can use one of those, and an old sheet my DH uses as a drop cloth. There is a hose right on the other side of that fence, so I can spray it easily. Will start tomorrow!

Jackie

You're welcome! I can't wait to see the photos of it eating its new structure. I'd leave the shade over it until it gets cool out and (hopefully) begins raining. The new shoots under it with the misting will be tender as if they sprouted in a green house, so they will be better hardened off in late fall into winter weather.

roseseek - I just ran out and put a large tomato cage over AO, and then draped a soaking sheet over the cage. I was just about to ask you how long to leave it on, but you already answered that! Our nights are getting a bit chillier, but we are still in the high 80 degrees every afternoon, and sunny and dry as dust. However, this is actually "normal" weather for this area in October. November will bring some cooler temps, and hopefully some rain. Thanks again for the great idea! When I take the sheet off eventually, I will put on a shade cloth for a week or so, so that the new growth can harden off.

Jackie

Blessings that the cooler weather will also bring some rains with it. Almost any period of rain is ideal for hardening off transplants, newly rooted plants, anything requiring conditioning to withstand drier, hotter conditions. Oh, and the sheet ideally should be white so it transmits all the light spectrum to the plant. It really can make a difference which wave lengths it receives so "daylight" is the best, just not as intense nor extreme as "unfiltered".

The sheet is white - all of my sheets are white, always.

Jackie

Weird - I could swear that I already posted a "status report update" to this, but I don't see it. Anyway, it has been raining here for the past 60 hours, and finally stopped (just for a while - another storm is coming in this afternoon, and they say a separate, really strong one in two days). So, I went out to examine my mature stumps of Anna Oliver (we took the sheet off as soon as it started to really rain). Ha! I knew there was one 1/4 inch sprout growing out of the smallest cane, because I could see it as I ran by in the deluge to get the paper every morning. However, just now I was able to go into the new garden, and really look at my transplanted AO stumps. I counted 15 tiny growing or swelling up bud eyes, even on some of the old canes which were 2-3 inches in diameter, with very thick bark. roseseek, you should give your advice re digging up and planting the base of old mature roses in more places on here, because it works!

Another miracle I discovered today - because our house is still scaffolded to the roof, in the fond hopes that the painting contractor will be able to finish painting it someday (not complaining - my DH and I are convinced WE caused all of this rain by having that put up, and hiring the painting contractor - we will happily take the painting delay in exchange for what they are saying will be 9-10+ inches of rain total in 8 days!) we had wrapped a few shorter old bushes in the bed next to the house in burlap, so the painters would not trample them, or get paint all over them. Our gardener was told to leave them alone when he was helping us get rid of the 3+ story banksia lutea and Cl Cecile Brunner. Well, that almost worked. He did spare the bush Cecile Brunner, (an ancient plant planted by my DH's great grandparents) and the Little White Pet, and the Ballerina. However, when I looked at that bed, I realized the Lavender Lassie bush had been reduced to one old bare cane 10" high and about 1 1/2" in diameter. It had been a "one cane wonder" for decades, so I thought, "Well, if it survives, perhaps it will produce more low down canes". This morning I looked at it - it is also under a burlap wrap, along with 2 roses next to it - and it had sprouted 4 teenie, tiny sprouts along its length!

Jackie

Congratulations, Jackie! Both on the rain and the new sprouts! I've suggested this here every time that question has been asked. The only modification has been using T-shirts which RoseangelLyn came up with. What's the difference between putting a plant out in the rain and putting it under mist? Nurseries put struggling things under mist and they explode. Rain is Nature's "mist". I hope the rain arrives in just the right amounts at just the right rate to soak in and not cause flooding or erosion issues. Fingers are crossed!

I wouldn't worry about any of those old plants which were whacked. Water pushes growth. Water is the best fertilizer, best fungicide and best insecticide. That rain is going to wash all the junk and corruption off the foliage, taking many insects and their eggs with it. Any disease issues caused by water stress will magically subside, probably only to be replaced by those occurring on the new, soft, sappy "water growth" in the more humid weather following the rain. It will also rinse all the built-up added salts from the soil from the tap water used to irrigate since the last rains, flushing them deeper into the soil. That will make all the plants look magnitudes better. May the rains bring only the good!

Rain is also good for the mood of humans - at least mine! Drought induced stress goes away, and whether it is the negative ions in the air, or the "white noise" of the rain, or the mild clean air, or the "happy" broadcasts of all of the plants in the garden, or the happy chatter of the birds, it feels wonderful.

Jackie

OMG, Jackie! What a roller coaster of ”eek” and ”whoopee”!! What a relief the ”whoopee” wrapped up the experience. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? You must be the Queen of Zen by now. I copied Kim’s instructions and pasted them into my rose gardening notes. I’m about to follow them to the letter because I must move two very mature climbers/large shrubs. Fortunately, it’s raining here, too! Carol

I am so happy for you that the roses are transplanting well. Yay for the blessing of rain! we are getting a ligh drizzle this morning and my Monsieur Tillier looks so happy. He is the rose that likes my climate the best of all of them. Rosette Delizy is a close second.

Jackie this is such good news. I am so happy you are having success with your Anna Olivier. I think it is a gallant rose. Mine made it - though not as big as yours - so I had faith that yours would as well.