An important question is, how large are the holes that you dug and replaced with the amended soil? I generally dig holes that are 18" deep by 18" wide, and would recommend holes at least that size for your landscape. This will provide enough loosened, amended soil to retain some moisture and allow the roots to grow.

@RoseBlush1 You have been super-helpful!!! You did say that you can't over-water roses if they have good drainage, but I was still worried about whether or not I actually do have good drainage. However, only a fool would pass up advice from the wiser, and I maybe a fool, but not today. I'll give them each two cans of water this evening (my watering can is ~1.25gal.), and water a bit more of a broader area to encourage a better spread of the root growth.

Mike said: An important question is, how large are the holes that you dug and replaced with the amended soil?..

I dug a 2'x2'x2' hole of course! I'm no mellenial, I'm a Gen-X'er! I believe hard work & perspiration is the only way to get things done! ...yeah, and turns out that hole was in the wrong spot, and it took me all day, and my hip hurt, and my hands hurt, and... digging is hard. So when I finally dug holes in the correct places, they were dug with post hole diggers to ~18" deep. My only (admittedly mediocre) excuse is, that when I'm not buying $10 grafted roses in "body-bags" from Waldo's, I'll get the right equipment first.

One day I hope to have Nacogdoches Yellows, & a classic Peace, but I'll do my best with what I've got for now, and hopefully, by the time I'm ready to level-up to those beauties, I'll have enough experience to know how to show them some real care.

As things are, I'm having fun trying to figure this stuff out with a big help from this forum. I almost feel like my little rose bushes are a part of a group effort now, and I'm not only grateful, but I'm also having a good time learning from y'all. Cotton

EDIT: Edited for clarity and humor

Cotton, good luck! You are in a good hands! I hope you would not mind if I ask a quick question here?
I have applied dry Mills Magic fertilizer and before doing this, remove pine barks mulch from roses away, than placed it back. Looks like a lot of work, do I need to do this or it's overkill? Thanks!

I had a light-bulb moment once I started watering over the mulched area. All the added mulch kept the water from pooling, and I could get about a gallon onto each plant before I started getting runoff. In the next day or two, I'll grab another bag of mulch, and I think that will allow me to get the full two gallons of water per rose that was recommended.

Yes it's true, I've never been around a mulched garden. As my mother was the gardener in a family of six, we all just knew to put spent coffee & tea, bones, fruit cores, & melon rinds at the foot of the rose bush, & stamp it in real good if it's something that'll make a stink. Real scientific, huh? Well, I can't remember a time when my mom has ever had rose bushes shorter than me. Then again, we were in a very different part of Texas back then, and growing in the Panhandle/Plains is a whole new ballgame.

Today I noticed that the shorter of the King's Ransom had a young limb crack, and began to wilt, so I had to cut it away. As I understand it, the hybrid teas are not usually short & squatty, which maybe working against them, and the wind here can be brutal, but I'm hoping that I can manage to help them to adapt. None of them are looking really fantastic today, but I'm hoping that it's just a little wilting from the move, and they'll settle in better once they've had a chance to adjust.

That's all for now, I'll post more pics as things progress. Cheers, Cotton

I got another bag of mulch on the roses this morning. I think I'm beginning to realize why it's important to dig a bigger hole. The wilting is real!!!



Cotton

Just out of curiosity, why is the surrounding earth completely bare?

porkpal said: Just out of curiosity, why is the surrounding earth completely bare?

It's my front yard. That's what naturally grows around here

I want to say that it'll get better in summer, but I have no idea if that's true. Cotton

Cotton ...

I got another bag of mulch on the roses this morning. I think I'm beginning to realize why it's important to dig a bigger hole. The wilting is real!!!

Yes, the wilting is real. Even a grade 1 newly planted rose will wilt in heat. Your rose is of a much lesseer quaulity than grade #1 roses. All newly planted roses have to grow a root mass to support the top growth. Their root systems are too inefficient to pump moisture up to the top growth of the rose. Your cheap roots are very much in survival mode.

Roses will abandon all growth that cannot support them to grow and or when stressed to save their roots so that they can come back when conditions are right and they have the tools to support growth.

Your roses have to grow roots before they can support the top growth. It's like building the foundation of a house. This is why you need to water every day.

I don't know what your temps are right now. You can help your roses by tenting them with a tomato cage, or something like that and an old sheet wrapped around the stucture you put up. Have a 5 gal bucket filled with water and the sheet trialing in the water near the rose. This will provide moisture the plant will take up through the foliage and provide more humidity which will slow the transpiration rate.

Don't for get that that roses need light for photosynthesis, so during the cooler hours of the day, remove your shade covering.

Smiles,
Lyn

@RoseBlush1, I wish I could tell you a range of temps, but it's been kinda' all over the place here lately, so it's probably easier if I just tell you the temps for the last week since they've been planted:

22nd of March (The day I planted them): 74°/47°F, 23rd: 68°/47°, 24th: 61°/37°, 25th: 62°/37°, 26th: 57°/32°, 27th: 67°/25°, 28th: 53°/24°, & Today: 74°/47°.

Forecast next week says highs from the high-60's to low-80's, and lows from the high-40's to low-30's with intermittent winds ranging from 10MPH-28MPH.

I've been taking your advice on watering all around the roses to encourage their roots to spread out more, but I understand that I should limit my expectations due to the lesser-quality of the rose bushes themselves. I knew this going into it, but I'll still give them a good effort, and hope for the best! In the worst case, I still gain experience.

Unfortunately, I cannot move them from the shade during the evening, because they get 6'o-clock shade from the house. Is it your recommendation that they should be covered during the heat of the day? My inexperienced mind figured that more sun would be beneficial so long as they were properly watered, or perhaps they need more shielding from the wind?

Thanks again, Cotton

Hi Cotton ....

Afternoon shade is GREAT for roses growing in a hot / dry climate. I wish I had more shade ...
5 to 6 hours of sunlight is sufficient for a rose. In a hot and dry climate shade slows down the water lost through the foliage.

One of the most important life lessons a garden teaches us is patience. We do the best we can to mitigate the variables that make it hard for plants to grow and then wait to see if it worked.

You may have thought you worked hard digging your rose holes. You did, but waiting for the rose to grow roots is going to be even harder ...

Yes, I do recommend that you put your shade structure around the roses during the heat of the day. If you have a hose that reaches that far, you can even wet down the sheet or whatever covering you use ... assuming you have time. Providing that extra humidity sends a signal to the rose that it can keep on putting most of its plant energy into growing roots.

I looked up your weather history and your temps should hit the high 90s and low 100s about mid-May.

Your roses will have more roots by then, but I suspect you will see them wilting all season long and will need your shade structure all season long if seeing them in that condition bothers you a lot.

In my mountain climate temps drop by about 50 degrees at night. My roses completely re-hydrate over night. The only time I have tented my roses was when I transplanted a rose when the daily temps were in the high 90s. (I had to transplant the rose at the wrong time because the deer were eating it to the ground .... araggghhh.)

Yes, a wind break will help. Wind dries out the foliage, the canes and the blooms.

Whenever I plant a rose, I consider it an experiment. There are so many variables that can impact a rose. You will be learning about roses forever. No one knows it all.

Smiles,
Lyn

Hi Cotton Texas, I'm in Clovis, NM, about 2 hours away, and have the same dirt as you. I'm also planting a bunch of roses. Mostly gotten from Tractor Supply, so Hybrid Tea Roses. The ones I have are yellow, but I want to get some of those carpet roses and put them at their feet. Pink or red, whatever I can get. I had no problem at all -- last year I got a Red and a Peach knock out rose, and my brother planted mini roses -- like the kind you get on valentines day. I planted one this valentines day as well, a kind of orange/yellow color. In my experience out here is that the way to kill a rose is put it in a planter and forget about it. The ground is way better. Yeah, drainage is a bummer.

Might I suggest you think of a living mulch? I use lambs' ears, but there are other plants, like sedums.

@RoseBlush1 I have been looking over options for shading, and today we're having wind gusts of about 25MPH, so I think if I can manage a way to keep a plant tent from blowing away, then it would help in both regards. I'm looking at a hoop & shade-cloth option that can be had for about $40, but money is still pretty tight right now. I'm sure there are makeshift options, but I'm in the process of having city officials come & go for inspections, permits and such, so I want to keep things aesthetically pleasing at least for now. I am currently working on a technique for acquiring more patience faster, but I keep getting frustrated at the lack of results.

@KatyLLL You have no idea how glad I am to hear that someone else around here is growing roses! It sounds like you've got some real beauties too. I've heard good things about knock out roses, but I wanted yellow roses as well, though in a different petal style than what's offered in the knock out line. Granted, I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but what I got was on sale, so I figured, why not give it a go? I'm super-noob, so I'm not familiar with what is a living mulch just yet. I do have plans to plant some native Dune Bluebonnets (Lupinus plattensis), but I don't know how I'm going to make a proper yard out of this desert, let alone grow flowers, but hey, I'm up for a challenge!

Thanks for chiming in here. I appreciate all the input! Cotton

Hi Cotton,

I'm posting this from quite far away...northwestern Patagonia, end of summer, suffering the driest drought of three consecutive years. All of our wells are almost dried by now, so my bushes are ( actually were) not receiving water at all. Once I realized that enough moisture is not only necessary but actually life or death, my only option was to lift them and place them in containers ( mine 8 gallon for bush sized and 10 gallon for climbers). I started to do so, late January lifting my bushes in the midst of the growing season . To my surprise none of my climbers had developed any feeder roots ( nor did the bush types: I discovered the same: not a single feeder root). That was the reason of why I saw no new growth on the top. They had started to go dormant very early on. No blooms of course. The first of these ( then 150 more bushes) was later transferred to my greenhouse ( cool no heating) since my major other drawback for growing roses is the lack of enough soil temperature so that a proper root mass is reconstituted. Now 'Ghislaine de Feligonde' is covered in plenty of blooms.

My climber is only now very much like this photo...
Many more followed later. Much against mainstream lore, the most and critical part of rose culture is developing a healthy root mass FIRST . A good root mass is the necessary guarantee of a thriving top growth and thence a good blooming season. Where I live can be considered a cool temperate dryland. A desert type of soil, actually quite like yours, similar to my brown sandy top soil. Roses come from a very different kind of environment. ( edges of moist forests with plenty of natural available organic material). So when changing environment, first their root system ( technically the root microbiome) has to readapt to the new condition. This is achieved by isolating the plant from the outside soil environment, instead of planting it in it. Not starting out in the ground that most gardeners do, because they live in the ideal environment or close to it. Not yours or mine. However roses do adapt to all conditions. But you need to buy time for it. That is where I'm chiming in for. In your condition perhaps your best choice would be simply pot them each inside a large container . My way of doing it would be place a layer of raw wool below (1") thick then some alfalfa meal or straw, another layer of dry leaves, and then my soil mixture. This is constituted in equal parts of brown soil ( sandy ...looks like yours but don't know) black soil, similar to your garden soil and finally well rotted compost ; all of it well mixed inside a wheelbarrow/cart. I fill my pot up to 4" below the brim, place the rose in the middle, trying to disturb the minimum existing feeder roots. Then fill up above the rootstock crown about 2" below the graft union, and top dress the whole thing again with dry leaves, raw wool and in your case at least an inch of wood chips so as to keep the whole plants' roots moist. Of course water it immediately afterwards watching how water oozes out from the bottom holes. Enough. Raw wool is a wonderful moisture retentive material. Since you are heading into your tipical triple digit summer I would keep your young plant in a shaded place, even if it only receives less sun than required for full bloom. Roses if placed in full shaded positions still grow and develop good roots; simply they might produce a few blooms the first year. Our friend here Lyn @RoseBlush1 , has taught me ( from the other end of our planet) that to grow a good rose you need to tend the first years differently from later on. The key to success is a healthy root system first.

I hope this helps.

Arturo

@hampartsum Those are some beautiful roses, and I thank you for your input. You have brought up some valid points here. One: @RoseBlush1 is a gem, and a true asset to the community. I have learned more in just a few interactions with Lyn than I have in hours of scouring the web, and two: I have definitely created a challenge for myself. Hopefully before summer moves in, I'll be able to get some kind of shade over them to keep them from cooking, and allow them to focus sufficient energy on root growth.

I hope that it's alright if I use this thread as a bit of a progress-page, as well as a way to get some feedback.

Below is the first King's Ransom which is looking pretty good. I'm surprised to see how well it has been doing since this was the weaker of the two when I got them.



Then there is my little Chicago Peace that I had to trim back a lot because of all the black stems and dried leaves. I'm very glad to see such an improvement.



Then there's this second King's Ransom which wanted to take to blooming already.



I've been afraid to cut away the wilted leaves, because I didn't want to leave it bare, but in the end, that's exactly what had to be done.



So what started out with the tallest shoot has now become the problem-child. I do so hope that it has enough left in it to get a few leaves out, if only to gather enough sunlight to feed the roots.

Anyway, sorry for being the world's worst cameraman, but I appreciate that I'm allowed. This community has been wonderful, and hopefully as I grow into my own, I'll have more to contribute than just poor pics of my sad little roses in the future. Thank you for all the replies! Cheers, Cotton

I completely agree. The only way these roses will survive is in a good sized container moved out of the scorching sun. Other than that I doubt no matter how hard efforts are made to save them they won't make it. If it were me and I wanted roses for that location, I would plant Knock-Out roses because that's what they were bred for-neglect and mean environs. The Walmart roses will suffer badly. They will need all the above mentioned work and tending to plus more. Cover from the mid day heat and sun is vital. It's going to be an uphill battle and a daily one at that.

@breith95 I do not doubt what you say is true. I have been looking into making a hoop shade using some ladder mesh, 70% shade cloth, and a few yard anchors, but I have to wait for my wallet to quit hemorrhaging dollars long enough to get it together. I have been watering them twice per day, a gallon per plant, once in the morning, and again in the evening. If I water more than that, I'll get pooling issues. Today was the hottest day this year at 87°, and we've got a cool spell coming, but sometime soon I know I will have to start protecting them from the mid-day sun.

I'll not do anything to intentionally harm them, quite the opposite to be sure, but I know the reality of these, that is they are $10 Wally's specials, and while I had to dig around the shelf a bit to find a pair of King's Ransoms, they are not particularly healthy, hearty, nor rare, and (at risk of sounding foolishly obstinate,) I reeeaaally don't want to dig these up. I like where they are, and I would find great personal pride in saying that these were the first things I planted within the first year that I moved in. I expect that these might only last a few years, and I can figure out how to deal with the spent earth, and plant some quality lasting roses that I'll know how to treat correctly (ie: how & when to pot or plant, water, feed, etc.)

I know your advice is good, (even @RoseBlush1 has told me to do the same, ) and I very much appreciate y'all sharing it with me. I'm also aware of the likely consequences of not taking good advice, and such will absolutely be put to good use on the next time around. I'm learning yet still.

Thanks y'all, and stay awesome! Cotton

It sounds like you are doing your best to care for your new roses. Good luck!

And it sounds like you have a great attitude about the whole thing!

I was thinking the same myself about 'full sun.' In this area, it seemed that full sun needs to incorporate some shade, at least during the hottest time of the day. I've seen people use shade cloth and tent like structures over garden beds out here all over. Roses do well too, but often they may need some shade during the 100 degree plus times of the year. I had a sedum get a burn on top, so its not just roses. Rosa rugosa is the natural wild rose that does well in terrible weather. Knock out and carpet roses (landscape roses) often have rugosa in their hybridization. The great thing is that they haven't been in so long, so if you find they are not fairing well, then keep them covered with shade cloth, and when they go dormant, just dig them up and move them close to a house or fence so they do get some shade during the hot part of the day.

Oh, I just took pictures of the various "live" ground covers in my garden. I often put some rocks in the area to allow water sheeting, and I would put a ring around the roses with bricks or rocks so the water does not go everywhere. So there are lots of small short plants that can be put around roses (not at the very base though, just "around" which will start to create a little "oasis" in the desert. I did not take a picture of them but try dwarf Iris as a ground cover, though it takes some years to come in. Here are pictures of other things I use: And also a picture of the area-- this is the same soil, same zone, same heat (and you guys actually get more rain then we do!). Most are succulents because when I chose a plant I find that either succulents or "gray" colored plants are more suited for heat, and low water. near-Xerotic conditions.
These are just ideas, there are 100s more to use. The idea is that they grow and keep moisture in the ground. But they also do not get tall, so cutting and trimming is unnecessary. You can actually use these plants for low-maintenance yards if you have enough of them.

A larger creeping sedum that will turn bright red

Sedum blue spruce (dusty blue color)

Lambs ears (the gray plant)

Sedum Angelina (bright yellow green)

Tiny matting creeping sedum (purple carpet)

Ice Plant. Cute, short, South African so it can take the heat.