Against my better judgement, I'm taking a chance. I received a kinda pathetically dried out, but nice sized own-root rose from a person in PA off of eBay. Spent $20 on the rose & another $8 on shipping. It's the Oshun (http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...), which is supposed to be a Paul Barden rose. The guy got it from Rogue Valley and decided that, after 2 years, he wanted to go something different with his yard, so was selling off all his roses (doesn't look like he had many on eBay). Now, I have nothing against Rogue Valley.. they have some absolutely awesome looking roses. But, I just don't like the little bitty bands. I don't have good luck with little bands.. I think it's because I'm so pathetic when it comes to taking care of them that they just don't make it due to my ineptitude.

Anyways, I received the shipment yesterday evening. Today, this morning, we had a very heavy hard frost (left the front yard glittering and had to scrape my front windshield), but it warmed up into the mid 60s. That's the way it's supposed to be all week.. lows in the mid to lower 30s, highs in the upper 50s, mid 60s. This is extremely unseasonable for us.. by this time, we've should have had at least 1-3 decent snow storms here in town (in the mountains, that's a different story.. I70 has been shut down a number of times already due to blizzards). But it's been too warm (only got down to like 40 on Halloween so DH & I were able to dress in our costumes w/o jackets) this season... way too warm. Which brings me to my dilemma. The time for planting has been over now for at least 2 weeks.. usually around the 10th of October is when planting is done because the ground's usually frozen the first 2-4". But, when I dug the hole to put in this rose, not only was it easily dug and filled with wormies (love dem wurmies!!), it was almost moderately warm. Not warm-warm, but a lot warmer than I expected. And since it's going to be nice all week, I think that on Friday, I'll be doing some watering on all my plants, give them a good head start for the winter months.

Do roses keep growing in the winter, if the winter's not too cold? I haven't lived in a warm climate (above zone 5) in years (1988 is when I moved out of a zone 7, I think that's what it was). So I'm out of my element here (NNY was a zone 3-4, I'm in zone 4-5a). I know that in Paradise (Zuzu's property, Calif-Sue), roses go bananas all year. Here, however, it's a different story. I was able to dig the hole over a foot deep, and that's where the root system is. The rose was an own-root, so I didn't have to worry about burying the bud union as there was none. But, as the entire plant was over 18" tall, only about 8-10" are exposed.. the rest is either buried completely in soft warm soil or buried in mulch.

Did I just throw away $28?

And what's worse is that I'm looking at another rose off of eBay (I'm an eBayaholic).. found only in Europe... should I try to put that one outside as well if I can protect it with the mulch? Or am I just kidding myself?

Gosh, I hope it does grow for you. Oshun is such a yummy rose.

I'm afraid I can't give you any advice whatsoever. I've never gardened in a cold zone.

Oshun is on my wish list so if in doubt, I can make an excellent babysitter.

Well, if it survives (I'm thinking about 100% burying it in mulch.. you know, I think I'll do that tonight when I get home. I can bury it 100% so nothing is sticking out. What I've done in the past is cut the bottom off of like a 15gal tree pot, so that all I have is a giant plastic ring. Wiggle that over the rose & then pour the mulch inside so it doesn't blow away either.), when it starts to grow & I can get cuttings, I'll send out cuttings to whomever wants some. I'd volunteer to root them, but then y'all'd be waiting a REALLY long time!! LOL!!! I can't see on HMF if it's a patented rose, so I don't think I'd be breaking any rules.

I got some baby citrus trees through a very uncharacteristic deep freeze here last year using your pot technique except I buried them in topsoil which I was told worked better than mulch.

Barden says it is most likely hardy to zone 6, possibly 5 with protection. You might consider over-wintering it in a cool (but not frozen) location if you have one, until you can plant it in the spring and allow its roots to re-set.

Is Evey around here any more? I wonder how all her stuff came back this past summer.. haven't heard/seen from her in a thousand years... I know that she was in the same boat as you, PPal, with the unseasonable cold snap that filtered down from us down to y'all there in the heatbelt.

Topsoil would work much better, but it doesn't breathe and would do the expand/contract with the freezes & thaws. That's why I go with mulch, not to mention a lot lighter to move!! Plus I still have a bit left from my mountain of mulch to work with (plus the 20+ bags I just bought to complete my yard).

Toni, I think we cross-posted.

Never said I was smart. I just got 2 roses from a seller in UK: Summer Holiday (http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...) & Doris Tysterman (http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...). Not really sure if they're bands or bigger.. I'm guessing bigger because they have to be "trimmed" to ship. So, depending on when I get them, I may just try & grow them inside through the winter. I can just put 'em into an empty bird cage to keep the cats out.

Wow! How exciting. They look really pretty in their hmf photos.

Toni,
I am a pretty severe critic of a number of rose suppliers who ship roses in bands. I received something more than a dozen bands from RVR this last April. I think only one has died so far; and I think it was in a bad location. Even one that I stepped on seems to have survived. I on average the roses in bands from VG are larger this year; but for whatever reason, my RVR roses just seem to keep going and going.

Which UK supplier will ship to the US? Do your roses need to be quarantined? I'm very puzzled. When I ordered once from Peter Beales they sent me special forms with a procedure that involved a few US government bureaucracies and a year or two of time. Also a rented field or a very large property.

Well, I will say that the UK postal service is truly worse than the USPS, which I firmly believed was the worst in the world. But, the guy shipped out my two bare root roses on Nov 5, they hit JKF on Nov 18 & I had them Nov 19. Even though these two bare root roses were in route for 3 weeks, they are PERFECT. PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT. I am estatically happy with them and will be watching his auctions for more roses. Granted, this is a very unusual fall/winter for us, but I felt perfectly safe in planting these guys outside. The root system on them was humungous, the canes (3 on Doris, 4 on Summer) were green and vibrant.. there was little leaves starting to pop out.

Can you tell I'm happy with them? http://myworld.ebay.com/andrew...

I dug 2 holes about 18" deep because they're budded roses and I wanted to make sure that the bud union was way deep. I then put them in, backfilled the hole with "Nature's Yield" organic compost (this was AWESOME compost, btw, but looks like it's only a local company), then put the rest of the soil on top so that only 2-3" of the canes was exposed. Then I put a bottomless bucket over the whole plant & poured more mulch inside so that it's 100% covered. Now I just have to wait another 7 months. Bleh.