I think it is phenomenally complicated, ordering roses from say, Europe, to be sent to the US. All sorts of documentation, plant passports, quarantine, lengthy (and spendy) import controls are required. Even interstate shipping is prohibited, I thought, in some parts of the US.. I think it has been done by sharing budwood but given the tremendous problems exacerbated by a global trade in carbon-based life (plants, animals, foodstuffs, human traffic and invasive pests), I kinda doubt this trade would be at all feasible for a keen individual to do this without a huge amount of time and $$$.

Awaiting professional breeders and such to chip in as I am just making wild guesses here, passing the time before bedtime.

Go to this link to the USDA import section. Read it all. Then go to the Permit section and see what's involved in obtaining an import permit. Be prepared as it can EASILY cost you many HUNDREDS of dollars in fees to import plant material. Also, be aware that nothing thicker than 10 mm can be brought in. That limits to you either bud wood which YOU must propagate and hold in quarantine for official inspections until cleared. Or, IF you can find a nursery overseas willing to root them for you then export them to you, it might be possible for you to grow the tiny plants during quarantine. EVERYTHING must be cleared and set up prior to your ordering any plants from any nursery. Plants without the appropriate USDA labels and paperwork attached will be confiscated and destroyed. And, anyone caught smuggling plant material can be subject to fines of many tens of thousands of dollars. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/importexport/SA_Plants

Thanks to rosaprimula and roseseek for your input! An additional question I have is if there is a known rose supplier that has already streamlined the export of their products? that is, that is already set up to export to the US legally? Just wondering . . . .

MOST nurseries overseas are set up to export to the US. The entire issue is you must apply for and obtain an import permit. You must have space which satisfies the USDA requirements where you can hold the material for the required import quarantine period (usually two years) where it will be physically inspected by an Ag agent on their schedule. An Ag agent will visit your location to insure it complies with their requirements before they will allow you a permit. There are fees for the agents' visits. There are fees for the personnel required to take possession of your order once it arrives at the US port of entry and walk it through the process then retrieve it and mail it on to you. It has nothing to do with streamlining on the export end. The legal parts are your obtaining the permit and following the rules to import and hold it in quarantine legally. A friend in Washington State imported many old US climbers which were custom propagated for her by a Dutch nursery. The US fees for her import order were reportedly over $600! JUST for FEES to get them through the inspection process. This was about 15 years ago. Heaven only knows what it can cost today. As long as you correctly do your part here and obtain the proper paperwork then mail the appropriate parts to the exporter and they follow the accompanying instructions, the process should work. Obtain the permits first and check with the exporter to make sure they know what's required BEFORE sending any money anywhere.

If there were, I promise we'd be gobbling up the Tantau, NIRP, and Poulsen roses also.

What Kim says.

Restrictions and costs have only gotten worse in the past ten years, so contact your local Ag Agent and find out whats possible, and how much its likely to cost you. Don't be surprised if its totally impractical.

Speak for yourself Aaron, I don't have $600 for fees alone 🙃 I can't even imagine spending that on such things.

oh I meant if there were reliable overseas suppliers. Not $600 for fees alone. Though I'm seriously considering spending a LOT to get some of the unique Otto and Sons options from Rose Story Farm that I can't find elsewhere.

Ooh, like which ones?

off the top of my head Meredith and Moonlight Magic, but I saw others!

Thanks to everyone for all your timely - and thorough - answers. I was reluctant to accept the reality of how difficult it is to import roses to the US, but other rosarians with experience importing European roses have since concurred. So you have saved me a heap of trouble!

The serious restrictions only apply to overseas imports, and not to Canadian nurseries. I don't know where you have looked, or what you are interested in, but Corn Hill in NB has interesting hardy stuff. There may be others that can ship across the border, but don't do it as automatically as Palatine.

Aaron, Rose Story Farm is a local business here (15-20 minutes down the road from me), mostly cut roses. I am stunned and amazed that they are selling 5 gallon roses by mail to zone 5 from Otto and Sons, who is a local large retail/wholesale rose nursery about an hour down the road from me. I went to Rose Story's website, but there wasn't a lot of info about this. LOL, some of Dani's roses might be from my garden, since one of my rose friends used to regularly make cuttings from my garden to give to Dani when she was starting out in the early 2000s. My husband always referred to her as "that lady who is always in our yard". I also taught both of her sons chemistry. Sorry, I digress, but it's amazing to me that someone is actually mailing 5 gallon potted roses across the country. Ballpark, what is the cost?

I do totally sympathise. Here in the UK, we had been able to buy roses from Finland, Serbia, the Netherlands...and often surprisingly cheaply. I bought an absolute stash from some Dutch merchants for what seemed like pennies and quite a few little spinossimas. It's how I acquired my beloved Darlow's Enigma. Now though, Brexit means no more of that. I hadn't really come up against the restrictions because I haven't bought any European roses for ages...but when I tried to do an order for Barnhaven primula seeds...sigh. Or some Scandi yarn.

Another prompt series of responses with good information!

Jackie

Yes indeed, so glad I asked!

@rosaprimula You can't buy the yarn you want? A heartbreaking tale! Low-key one of my dreams is to travel to places with rich knitting culture and try to learn new things and buy lots of yarn. I can dream.

Susan, I mailed a couple of 5 gal size roses to myself here when I moved down from Alaska. It had to be $100 a piece for 3 day air. It took 10 days and when I asked what happened (They were stuck in Oakland for a week) the post office said "Oh, that 3 day air never works for Alaska".

The plants "Hazeldean" were fine.

Sheila, thanks for the story about shipping your roses from Alaska! Major LOL on the comment about "3 day air never working for Alaska". I'd gladly pay $100 to ship a beloved rare 5 gallon rose to myself. BUT, what I'm really curious about is how much a nursery is going to charge the customer when it involves: 1) purchasing the rose from Otto and transporting it, 2) packaging the rose and taking it to the shipper, 3) paying the shipping from zone 9/10 to zone 5, 4) making a good profit off of that to make it worthwhile. I hope Aaron clues us in on what they're gonna charge for this... seems like we're veering more into the $200-300 range.

Maybe it's gone down since then, but at the beginning of this season it was $100 to ship plus a $40 box. I'm guessing (HOPING) it's less now to ship, but it won't be that much less. Gas has only gone down by maybe $1.50 to $2.00 a gallon, at least here in flyover country.

Aaron, thanks for the info. I'm assuming that's just shipping, right? I'd still be curious what the total price is out the door :-D

You might ask Bill at Roses Unlimited if he's ordered from Germany recently. Several years ago he had success.

He also would not have imported through the huge airports (Miami, Atlanta or NYC.)

I received imports (not plant material) in Houston and my company used a broker. Except another broker bought out our broker and I had the cuttings from the top of a well stuck in customs. So I went to the airport and talked to the (barney fife) guy and got them freed up. He wanted to declare them soil and throw them out, I managed (local cockroaches crawling all over me) to ignore the roaches and show him the depths involved and cuttings.

If it had been plant material it would have died just waiting for the who does what to get straightened out.