I ordered a couple of bare root roses from the David Austin collection
These were the two varieties that I got, Munstead Wood and Princess Alexandra of Kent. There was another variety Olivia Rose that did not arrive with the order as I was a little delayed in putting in my request. However I settled for these two so that I could start building out my outdoor garden.
The roses arrived in the first half of January and I was truly excited to see them. They looked all shriveled up and dead and I was wondering if I had done the right thing in ordering these as a first time attempt. Anyway in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. Since the roses came in on a weekday evening, I did not have too much time to look at them that day.
The next evening, I came back a little early and decided to start work on these roses. I took a couple of buckets that we had in the garage and filled them up with tap water. I unpacked both the roses and spread their roots a little bit. Being roses, they had the prickly thorns all over their bark so had to handle them a little carefully. In hindsight, I should have used my gardening gloves. But no harm.
I was able to get both the roses into their respective buckets and ensured that the entire root ball was soaked in water. Now the instructions say that the roses need to be in water for a few hours and never overnight. However I didn't have the time to do this during the week and definitely didn't want to wait till the end of the week to start on this. So the roses stayed in the bucket not just overnight but for a couple of days.
I felt a little guilty about doing so and was worried that I had doomed my bareroot roses, so the next day, I was able to leave a little early from my office and come back home before it became too dark. I then started on the process of transplanting these roses into a container. (We are not yet done with the backyard so cannot put these into the ground). I did have a large half barrel that we had got real cheap at an Orchard Supply moving sale and thought that that would be big enough to have these roses started for now.
Added a good amount of chicken manure, potting soil and compost in equal measure to the half barrel. Then went in and placed both the roses into the mixture and proceeded to fill up the rest of the container with the same mixture. Lightly watered it and set it in a spot where it would get about 6-8 hours of sunlight every day.
Now it was just a matter of wait and watch for me. This was the third week of January.
These were the two varieties that I got, Munstead Wood and Princess Alexandra of Kent. There was another variety Olivia Rose that did not arrive with the order as I was a little delayed in putting in my request. However I settled for these two so that I could start building out my outdoor garden.
The roses arrived in the first half of January and I was truly excited to see them. They looked all shriveled up and dead and I was wondering if I had done the right thing in ordering these as a first time attempt. Anyway in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. Since the roses came in on a weekday evening, I did not have too much time to look at them that day.
The next evening, I came back a little early and decided to start work on these roses. I took a couple of buckets that we had in the garage and filled them up with tap water. I unpacked both the roses and spread their roots a little bit. Being roses, they had the prickly thorns all over their bark so had to handle them a little carefully. In hindsight, I should have used my gardening gloves. But no harm.
I was able to get both the roses into their respective buckets and ensured that the entire root ball was soaked in water. Now the instructions say that the roses need to be in water for a few hours and never overnight. However I didn't have the time to do this during the week and definitely didn't want to wait till the end of the week to start on this. So the roses stayed in the bucket not just overnight but for a couple of days.
I felt a little guilty about doing so and was worried that I had doomed my bareroot roses, so the next day, I was able to leave a little early from my office and come back home before it became too dark. I then started on the process of transplanting these roses into a container. (We are not yet done with the backyard so cannot put these into the ground). I did have a large half barrel that we had got real cheap at an Orchard Supply moving sale and thought that that would be big enough to have these roses started for now.
Added a good amount of chicken manure, potting soil and compost in equal measure to the half barrel. Then went in and placed both the roses into the mixture and proceeded to fill up the rest of the container with the same mixture. Lightly watered it and set it in a spot where it would get about 6-8 hours of sunlight every day.
Now it was just a matter of wait and watch for me. This was the third week of January.
I did nothing to the rose plant for the next week or so as there was a light rain that used to fall overnight and I had been informed that you don't need to water the plant till spring starts. I was truly skeptical about this plant blooming this spring but what can you do?
I went out this last weekend to just check on the progress of the plant not truly expecting anything to have happened. But to my great surprise, I could see some red buds/shoots coming out from the main stems of both the roses!!! Yay!! Nature is truly great. See photos below. Still a little apprehensive about the growth but will keep you posted on how this goes.
