Growing Roses

[amadi]

Does anybody know anything about growing roses from bare starters? Costco is selling rose starters, which look like plain wood roots with nothing green, no blossoms, nothing, but apparently if you plant them, they take root and they grow. They're not high priced and are probably nothing special but the price is such that it's worth the risk to give it a try.

Has anyone ever done this or have basic info about what sorts of soil conditions, temperature concerns, feeding/fertilizing issues and whatnot I'd need to know before jumping into planting one of these starters and calling myself a rose grower?

Comments

[sara]

Most of the roses you're going to see at Costco and home center type places will be grafted tea roses. You may get a good one; that said, they are all going to be grafted, not own-root, which means that if you live in a colder climate, they are unlikely to make it through the winter. I have bought roses at home centers and had them do very well; they were potted and not bare-root, and they were all marketed as "shrub roses."

My experience with Costco's bareroot roses and blueberries and bulbs has been uniformly negative -- I have yet to have any of them live through a year. The prices are so low because the stock is just not cared for as it would be at a nursery. I get most of my groceries at Costco, but I won't buy plants there any longer.

[amadi]

So if I want something that will last (I'm in Pennsylvania, so definitely colder climate) better to go to a garden center and get something potted with its own roots? I'm not opposed to doing this; we're looking for something that's going to last, definitely, I just need to know the terminology so I get the right thing! :)