Hi Mas, no, you need an import permit for as few as one plant. Difficult? Not as difficult as open heart surgery, but you are required to apply to the state dept of agriculture in your state and provide them with your identification to prove who you are so you can be cleared to apply to the USDA to APPLY for a permit. An inspector from your state's dept of agriculture has to inspect your site to insure you can accommodate the material for up to two years (perhaps longer if something appears wrong with it) a minimum of ten feet from all other plants in the genus Rosa, to prevent any pests or diseases from infecting potential host plants during their quarantine period. Plus, you are liable for the cost of inspector visits, including mileage (here in California) to inspect your material during quarantine. You must control the land you wish to use to house the quarantine material, meaning if your friend or relative intends to hold the material for you because you don't own land or haven't room for the material on your land, the person holding the material must apply for and receive the permit and is then legally liable for it while in quarantine.
In the good old days, you imported lovely budded plants. Not now. Due to our attempts to prevent importing the Asian Long Snout Beetle, which is wide spread across Europe and damaging many ornamental and food crops, no rose material thicker than 10mm may be brought in. Measure 10mm and imagine that being the THICKEST part of the "rose bush". That limits what you can bring in to rooted cuttings, which most European nurseries don't make. That means you need to orchestrate obtaining what you want from the nursery which buds it, to be sent to the nursery which agrees to root pieces for you, or hope they will obtain what you want then generate the rooted plants you desire. IF all works as it should, imagine receiving bare rooted, own root, rooted cuttings no thicker than 10mm and then trying to keep them alive after their having spent up to several weeks in the mail. Also, in the good old days, the sending nursery mailed your packages which were received at the USDA inspection station, inspected, treated them forwarded to you. That worked well over the several times I did it years ago. Now, there is a new cottage industry where, instead of someone receiving the package, dealing with it then simply dropping it into the mail to come to you, you must pay over time wages to a USDA employee to go down, pick up your package, bring it back, walk it through the inspection and treatment process, then repackage it and mail it off to you. Those charges can vary as much as the charges levied by your state dept of ag to inspect your land and imports. I have heard horror stories of them ranging as high as $600 for a single shipment of several boxes, JUST for someone to walk them through the process. Not to actually inspect and treat them, just to move them through then box and mail them.
Time out of the ground in plastic bags can be quite difficult on a larger, budded plant. On a 10mm or thinner rooted cutting, it can be fatal. So, "difficult"? Much more so than it was years ago, and must more expensive, for a much more sensitive, questionable product. I applied for and received a new import permit, then I learned what is now involved and decided there are no roses nor plants of any kind, worth the kind of monetary, time and energy costs importing would be. And, these will vary depending upon where you are and which point of entry into the US your package arrives at. If you live in a less populated area with an agricultural inspection point and the airport doesn't have as severe security restrictions as LAX did when I lived in the LA area, you MAY be permitted to retrieve your package from the inspection station after inspection and treatment. I wouldn't have been able to do that because security at LAX is too high and no non-employees would be permitted in those areas, so I would have had to hire the USDA employee at time and a half. Contrast that with the last time I imported, back in the mid eighties. The British nurseries ignored my request for November delivery. Forty or so bare root rose bushes arrived at LAX in MID MAY, when the temperature in Northridge, CA (where I attended graduation from Cal State Northridge for my younger sisters that day) was 107 F! I left their graduation, drove to the USDA inspection station at LAX and literally treated my own imports with the inspector. She looked at the plants then had me put on chemical resistant gloves, a chemical resistant apron and googles and help her dip my plants into the toxic chemical stew required to insure nothing hitched rides in on the bare roots. I took them home from there afterwards, soaked them in several 40 gal trash cans of water in the shade and potted every one of them into ten gallon cans of potting soil, which were also mounded up with cardboard cylinders full of potting soil in an attempt to keep them damp, dark and cool in triple digit, desert heat. Every plant died. Had they been small rooted twigs...
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Importing roses
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