Rose gurus: Please post your favorite source for ordering own-root roses. Now that Pickering Nurseries is not longer
in business, I'm pondering where to order a few roses.

Thanks.

Hi, Angie. Nice to hear from you. I can't help you in your search because I no longer buy own-root roses, but I just wanted to say hi.

Many of my own root roses - which is mainly what I grow - came from The Antique Rose Emporium.

Hi, Zu! I miss your posts, but my time is so limited these days I hardly know whether I'm coming or going! Alexis is now 7, going on 18, and
what with school and after-school activities, church events, etc., you see what I mean! I hope you are well. I'll get back on here one of these
days.

ARE, Chamblees, Roseland, RU, Palatine and David Austin are the ones I recall from a couple of years ago, but Pickering was my favorite. Those
roses thrived! I've checked out Palatine and Chanblees and they don't have the ones I'm looking for, but I'll check out the others.

Thanks for the suggestions. Good to hear from you, Zu!

Palatine has never sold own-root roses, Angie.

I often recommend Burlington Rose Nursery owned by Burling Leong.

Burling worked for Ralph Moore for a couple of decades and sells own root plants from several classes, but not any roses that are currently under patent.

She does not maintain her inventory on her website, but does maintain her nursery inventory on HelpMeFind. It's best to contact her directly and ask her to send an availability list.

The quality of the plants she sends out is superb. Her prices are generally lower than other own root nurseries and she works to keep her shipping costs down.

Smiles,
Lyn

Angie, my favorites are Chamblee Rose Nursery and Northland Rosarium. Really good people and roses. Carols band roses used to scare me but even back when I didn't have much of a clue as to what I was doing I never lost one of them. Finding own root has always been more difficult. Here they have always been my greatest long term successes. If perhaps you should be wanting multi flora root stock. Palatine roses is fabulous. Happy rose hunting.

Angie, in browsing Regan's offerings, I see they offer several varieties as own root. It also says those are sent bare root, so I'm assuming they would be larger plants than are sent in pots.

Pat, have you found Palatine's multiflora rootstock more vigorous in your zone? I'm excited to try their plants this year, since multifloras are so hardy and develop such big root systems, it seems they would develop into nice, big plants.

No one is mentioning Roses Unlimited Own Root? gee.. I love them!

rosesunlimitedownroot.com

Only bad thing with them is their shipping.. it's ridiculous!! The shipping itself isn't too bad, but the $5 / plant on top of shipping just kills after a while. They send out 1gal plants.

The thread "YAY!! Roses Unlimited sent me purdies!" in Roses forum

From last year.. didn't order anything this year as I wasn't sure if I was going to be in CO or not.

I used to love Roses Unlimited, but not anymore. The $8 per rose shipping charges, plus the $5 handling fee, seemed bad enough, but then when I dug up some of my ailing RU roses and found that their potting medium had turned into some kind of peculiar sawdust-like matter, which refuses to hold moisture even when the soil around the rose is soaked, that was the crowning blow. If I ever buy anything from them again, I'll be sure to remove all of the potting medium before I plant, but for now it's likely that I won't ever buy any RU roses in the future.

Zu - You think maybe that's why I have so many failures of them? Their potting medium is really weird.. last time I got roses from them it reminded me of a gritty charcoal mix w/sawdust... but it's the shipping that kills me. I just really can't stomach paying $16 for a rose then $13 for shipping of said rose.

The price is ridiculous if you aren't within the states making up their cheaper shipping zones. For $29, you probably can buy a really huge rose locally. I know I can.

It could be the reason for your failures. It certainly seems to be the reason for mine. Many of my RU roses are doing well, even after many years in the ground, but others have never thrived. When I look up my old invoices, I find that the weaklings were all sent in the same orders. I have to conclude that the potting medium is the only pertinent variable. The seasons of the deliveries don't seem to have any effect on the viability of the plants, but the roses in some orders grow while others stay the same size or gradually shrink over time. I think they may add something awful to their potting mix at times, and I unfortunately placed several orders when that particular awful thing was part of the mix.

Hey, y'all! All familiar people here whose opinions I trust. Thanks for the info. I now have enough to tide me over the holidays
while I research and decide what to do. Sorry I was mistaken about the own-root roses from Pickering, Zu.

Neal, great to see you again. Lyn, I'll check out your recommendation. Toni and Zu, I remember a similar conversation about RU from a couple of years
ago. I knew I'd get some great ideas here! Thank you, thank you.

Neal, I'll try to answer the best I can. Dr. huey root stock does well in alkaline soils. Multiflora is recommended east of the rocky mountains and northern zones. I've also have turned to Paul Zimmerman for advice as this has always worked well here. Even in Kentucky he would recommend when planting to make sure to bury the grafted part of the rose. I also plant on an 50 degree angle. If your rose is naturally vigorous it will put down its own roots and they will grow big and strong.
Used to grow about 400 roses way back. When I finally decided no chemicals (they were being banned in countries every where) so why was I still using them. Well I got to dig up a lot of roses. Dr. huey roots were horrible here. Multiflora was better but the hands down winners were the own root roses. They had the biggest deepest roots of the bunch. Stressing here that this in my experience only.
Now varieties, I'm having fantastic results with Kordes roses. Not all Kordes roses are no spray roses. I check with Newflora as each rose has disease and powdery mildew ratings and I plant only those with three or four star ratings. I find these to be very vigorous healthy roses. So many hybridizers working now to produce heathy vigorous roses the future is looking good for me.
I'm sorry to yack so much when you only asked about multiflora root stock. Yes, it should do best for you. Thou I vote for trying 1 own root Kordes from Chamblee's and see what it does for you. All of my plants from Palatine have gone own root anyway and are big gorgeous rose bushes. Good Luck! Pat

Oh, please yack away, Pat- I appreciate it! I'm so glad you mentioned covering the bud union, I've always done that in the past, but lately have wondered if I should be uncovering it during the growing season. I also found that several plants have developed strong root systems above the graft, and once was even able to cut a large rooted piece off and ended up with 2 nice, large plants! I picked up a couple of Kordes roses for the first time this year, and they have both performed beautifully. The fairytale series is on my list- I NEED all of those beauties!

Neal - I always bury my bud unions a minimum of 2" and a max of 6" below the surface of the ground, and then pile mulch on top of that. have to do that for my winters. I never uncover the bud union.. I'm too lazy! Now I may move the mulch away from the rose a little when I'm poking around or trimming off winterkill, but other than that, it's 100% buried.

Toni: Love your avatar! What a sweet kitty.

Angie - That's Nike.. he's my little turd kitty. Here's his story: http://imgur.com/a/Z4a3A

Thanks, Toni, for posting his story. What a lovable dear. We are once again in the process of losing pets. Our white cat (survivor of twins)
died a couple of months ago at age 13, young for most cats but I think whites do not live as long? His brother died at age 7 of myocardial hypertrophy.
Last month we lost Punkin (no, we didn't name him that). He belonged to the next door neighbor who moved and left him and another cat, Midnight,
and they promptly moved in with us. We had been feeding them anyway, because she never did. How do people do that? Now we're down to Rosie,
a stray who moved in with me when I was living and working Asheville, Lucky, a grossly obese orange tabby, and Midnight, solid black from next
door.

Love little Nike!! You did good, girl.

I've lost more white kitties than any other color.. but, then again, I had an overabundance of white kitties, too.

Osiris (with Conan.. black kitty) http://www.catster.com/cats/54...


Raiden


and Vasillia


I've also lost Freyja (http://www.catster.com/cats/52...) and Conan recently... http://www.catster.com/cats/36... I still cry over his memory.

Osiris has my Golden Rain Tree over him, Raiden has a Princess de Monaco (Rose (Rosa 'Princesse de Monaco')) rose. Vasilla now has a Purple Autumn ash tree over her as her rose didn't survive (Silverado: Rose (Rosa 'Silverado') ). Freyja is flanked on both sides by climbers as she's got an arbor.. Harlequin (Rose (Rosa 'Harlekin')) on one side & Purple Splash (Rose (Rosa 'Purple Splash')) on the other. Conan doesn't have anything yet as it was too late in the season to try & find a tree for him, but I'm wanting to put an Autumn Blaze or October Glory over him. I had actually gotten Harlequin as an own root rose off of eBay.. the seller isn't listed right now (wrong time of year) but it's like oldantiqueroses or something like that.