I want to move a rose bush from my old property to the new property. I have tried to dig around the plant but the soil is like a rock. I am wondering if it is root. Have anyone had this happen?

I would just buy it again if I knew the name. I purchased it from K-Mart 20 years ago. It was the beginning of my garden days. Names were like "what is a name" it is a rose.

You may ask why do I want to move it. I have a very hard time keeping roses alive. This is a bloom machine, never had to spray nothing seems to bother it. It has sat at the edge of the property for the 20 years with road salt thrown at it more abuse than most weeds would have given up and it has kept on ticking.

Take a hose and soak the ground around it. Soak it good. Dig around in a circle, like you did before, and add more water in the hole. The process may take more than 1 day, but keep saturating the ground. that will make it easier to get out of the dirt, and will prepare the rose for the shock of moving. When we moved to this house 3 years ago, i moved several large, mature roses this way. They all made it, which surprised me since it was in the heat of summer. Just keep it watered well after you move it, and maybe cut it back a bit to match the root loss. That's a lovely rose, and I think you are right in keeping it.
Good luck!

After you have created a bog around the plant, you may have better luck digging it out with a fork than with a shovel. You won't get much dirt with it, perhaps, but if you never let it dry out, I'll bet it will survive.

Thank you Cindi and Porkpal. I will give it another try with the water method. I moved trees and bushes and when I tried to dig this one out I was surprised that it was so hard.

The realtor told me I had to slim down the gardens and make the landscape simple and I just could not just cut good plants down and kill them. This is the last need to go plant to make the front the grass simple front entrance garden and it is a plant I really want.

I had a similar experience, Cinta. Our house was on the market for over a year before it sold, and I was constantly digging out plants and moving them to this house, trying to make the old house look more cookie cutter.
Thank goodness the eventual buyers (from South Carolina) did appreciate the lush landscape I left.
They probably would have liked the jungle it was before the realtors stepped in.
I am happy you already have a new place to locate the plants. The roses transplanted a lot better than I expected, so i think your hard work will also be rewarded.

Yes Cindy these pesky realtors. I think they do not like gardens and think nobody likes gardens, :rofl I thought I was landscaping and they think it is work. I left enough grass for the man to mow and gardens for the gardener. But she thought I had too much garden,

I was going to have to buy a lot because there were no gardens on the new property. Can you imagine 2 acres of grass and fruit trees. I am getting a lot of that grass gone with bushes, flowers and more fruit trees.

It will break my heart if I get it out and it does not survive.

Realtors are full of bad advice. I once put a very low bid on a house because it had awful wall-to-wall carpeting covering the hardwood floors, paneling on the walls, and plastic brick surrounding the fireplace. My offer was accepted, I bought the house, and I immediately began removing all of the horrible carpeting, paneling, and brick. The previous owner came over to pick up some things he had forgotten in one of the closets and was appalled to see what I was doing. He and his wife had made those "improvements" on the advice of the realtor before putting the house of the market and had paid big bucks for them. I didn't compound his misery by telling him I would have paid more for the house if it hadn't been for the hideous prospect of having to tear out all of the "improvements" before I could move in.

Oh zuzu that is funny. At least she told me not to make any improvements inside. Just clean and show. I did stage because I knew someone said they could not tell if one of the rooms was a bedroom or study because they had not staged that room.

Can you imagine being so dumb? You cannot look at the listing and if it says 4 bedrooms and you expect to see bedroom furniture in that room because it could be made into a study because it was on the first floor. Count the rooms for goodness sakes.

Lot of people also do not like to see a room without furniture because they have absolutely not vision.

OK everyone. I soaked it for 1 hour and started the dig. Will keep working on the dig and try to get my rose out of the ground.

Good luck! - and keep soaking.

Sounds like good advice on all fronts.

Are you surprised I still have not got this out of the ground yet.

It has been so stinking hot I could not dig any longer. Just picking up a shovel would just kill me. Maybe now that it has cooled a little and we have gotten some rain I can go back and try again.

The house still has not sold so I have time. When I get it out I will replace it with a small bush. Maybe someone will buy this house. Maybe this rose bush is holding up the sale. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

I think you should prune the bush a bit to reduce its suffering during the transplant. Good luck with the transplant and the sale!

Thank you Sue. I was thinking I will wait and see if I can get it out of the ground then I will prune. Thank you for the help because I do not know what I am doing past trying to get it moved.

Cinta - You know, it looks a lot like my Sunny Delight. I know that HMF shows it as a deep yellow, but this year it's been a lighter yellow, just like your picture.

Thanks Toni. I will order one in case this one does not survive the move. It is a awesome bloomer never any blackspot. It has been at the edge of the road with a steady winter diet of road salt and it never misses a beat.

I got my rose out.

The house was up for sale and I had moved. It had not sold and during the winter the pipes broke. It took the insurance company six months to complete the repairs.

One of the workers asked me was I going to leave my rose after it was sold. I explained to him that I had tried to dig it out but age and a bad back was not working. He said he would dig it out for me.

I guess it was meant to move with me.

I have it in a huge pot of compost and gave it some thrive and will keep it moist until I get it into the ground.

I LOVE a happy ending!!!

Yay!

That is a beautiful rose. It looks like a keeper to me! I'll have to look for sunny delight.

I am glad that you managed to get it out! Bring them with you or find them good homes because they are just going to kill them afterwards. If you drive past again after you moved out, you will feel bad that they killed your plants -unless you have neighbors like mine who will "rescue" them.

You are lucky you can plant them right away. I am moving and will have to keep roses in pots for a while. It takes a long time to dig holes big enough to plant roses in the Pocono Mountains. Also, I am recovering from an auto accident and have to pace my heavy work.

It will be fun to move the plants around and see the color combinations. I will also have time to judge the light levels and wind.

Realtors are "special". I wish that I had a picture of one of my realtor's faces when I told her that I was allergic to mold and not even bothering to set foot in that damp, moldy dump! (BTW, the dump is still on the market).

Thank you all for sharing your advise and sharing in my joy.

Andi, I know my neighbors had been cutting on this poor rose trying to get a start. She was down to 4 canes. When I lived there people would ask me for cuttings and I would cut a piece. They all said they were not successful. I guess when they saw I was gone they thought if they cut as much as they wanted they could root it.

I think we could have a good topic on realtors and house hunting. I should start one in conversation. One house we went to see I told my realtor I would not get out of the car the people had to guard dogs at the front door growling when we drove up. They knew we were coming. If they did not have sense enough to put their dogs away they certainly did not want to sell their house.