Coming late to the conversation, but I have had this happen, and am going to be moving an old rose bush next month or so. Just to let you know, I'm more of a minimalist gardener, in that I don't fuss a lot on a day to day basis, but I do preventive maintenance to try to avoid problems. Right now I'm ignoring the roses because we still have the risk of snow, etc.

Here is my opinion and what I do:

If you want to move them, then move them. When I move a rose, I dig a very deep, wide hole (compared to regular perennials). I think a little over two foot down, and at least 18' wide.

But I always cut back to just knee high, not long after the leaves start developing. Then put a good layer of mulch around them, in dish form so the water will stay around the rose when you water or it rains. It looks like the climber does not have anything to climb. If it doesn't have something to climb it will just get leggy and boring and grow along the ground, probably picking up pests, etc. As the climber grows, have green "tape" or some type of tie on hand to hold up the canes. Sometime in mid-May or so, I use Bayer rose fertilizer in granule form, then water in. I don't fertilize too early- because of the risk of frost, as I mentioned earlier. That's about it unless you want to get fancy and try different fertilizer like some serious rose growers use.

As CindiKS mentioned, I too keep weeds or anything else from growing right along the rose. Other plants can pass along disease, and roses for sure need good air circulation. Hope this helps!

I cannot believe I forgot to mention this, but it is early.....I always plant roses where they have afternoon sun. They love afternoon sun. (Afternoon shade can leave a rose with moisture overnight and that = black spot in my neck of the woods)

I, too, am late to the conversation, but felt the need to add something to @AlyssaBlue 's post.

I water the roses I plan to move deeply a few days before I plan to move the plant. Whenever, you mess with the roots of a rose, ie dig part of them out to move a rose ... you can't get them all ... , watering the plant deeply a few days before the move to hydrate the plant sets the plant up to handle the move better. The roots in the new location are going to be inefficient when first planted, that's why you water often after you move a rose. Making certain the plant doesn't need for those roots to be fully effective before you move a plant helps reduce the transplant shock the rose may have as it settles into its new home.

Cindi ... isn't it amazing how much misinformation is in those older rose books ?

Brendon ... the roses are your best teacher. If something doesn't look right, please ask more questions.

I held off posting initially because I have always gardened in a warmer zone and wasn't sure what I was seeing in your photos. Roses are tough and can be wonderful, if they are happy.

You guys rock my god, unbelievable amount of support, I'm speechless!

Alyssa, they aren't climbing roses for the record

Ok, I thought the third photo looked like one. Well then, you have more options if you want to move the roses!! Have fun with it! I have been surprised in the past how resilient roses can be. But they can become divas of the garden once you start fiddling a lot though, just a warning.

It looks like a climber to me too.
To add to what Alyssa and Lyn said, I always have to qualify my advice with a little info about my climate. I would dig a hole 3 or 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep if I moved a rose. That's because, while I have fabulous soil, I also have a droughty climate, and I don't irrigate much. The rose roots have to spread out to find more water. They also have huge anchor roots, maybe because they need to hang on for dear life in our wind! While Brenden and I share a zone 6 continental climate, I can guarantee it's very different. I have a super long growing season, and no snow cover to protect on those wildly varying winter temps. We hit 24 degrees Saturday morning. Tuesday's forecast is 80. Some years I have dieback to the ground, this year I have virtually none on any rose, even zone 7/8 Chinas.
People in my same city may give different advice because they have city heat and fences protecting their plants. I deal with rabbits, coyotes and deer pruning my roses, and turkeys, armadillos, and skunks scratching and exposing roots. They deal with chemical overspray from neighbors.
My roses are in beds with other plants, and I'm a big believer in companion planting, but I don't let anything grow in the "drip line" of the rose. Just a light layer of mulch there, all for the reasons Alyssa gave. Underplanting, or companion planting, is a whole nother issue, and there's several good threads on that. My advice is, if you are renovating a whole area for your mom, be careful what plants you use around the roses so that the roots don't steal from the roses. They will need space to grow roots without competition if you are moving them. You are ok with most annuals, and rose moss (annual portulaca) is a good one if you can grow that up there. Just no vines. (except clematis )
This link
http://www.rose.org/rose-care-...
Has good information on pruning old garden roses. As you can see, it is very different from the instructions you'll get from a store selling mostly hybrid teas. The link gives a possible reason as to why you have not seen blooms.
You are doing such a wonderful thing for your mother. As a mom, I say WOW.

@AlyssaBlue

AlyssaBlue said:they can become divas of the garden once you start fiddling a lot though, just a warning.

Depends on the rose ...

Not every rose is suited for every climate or soil. However, that is how they were marketed for decades. No wonder people thought roses needed a lot of work. If a rose is happy with your climate, your soil and your care, it grows like a weed. It's the roses that don't meet those requirements that are the divas in the wrong garden ..

Cindi ... you are beginning to sound like me when I write about roots ... I never under plant my roses either because I don't want to mess with the feeder roots. Oh, I have some short growing early blooming bulbs, but, as you know, I do have a thing about roots ..

well here is my current progress. so I did some pruning as you might be able to tell,and I ated 2 get the entire plant out of the ground. as you can tell I was unable because it has two gigantic roots going completely South. I got one up, the one on the left, but the other two will be a little bit more difficult than I thought. also I was informed by my mother that they are not climbing roses, she did not like them. she also seem to remember she got them from Jackson Perkins. And she said now, changing the story a bit, that all of the Roses went wild comma and they all turned red. The weed barrier definitely forced the roots to grow outwards. And there is solid gray dirt/clay under barrier. I recovered the entire plant knowing I need more time.

Whoa ... you many not want to bother planting them !

Most of the roses sold by J & P back when your mother got the roses were budded to a root stock called 'Dr. Huey'. Dr. H has deep red blooms. That would explain the once blooming thing, too because it only blooms once a year on old wood.

Just in case you don't know, if the plant budded to the root stock dies or is taken over by the more vigorous root stock, you end up with just root stock and no longer have the named rose .. i.e. 'Tropicana', 'Mister Lincoln' and 'Peace'. You just have a root stock that has red blooms once a year.

Dr. H. was used as root stock because it is very, very good at growing roots and accepted almost anything that was budded to it. It is supposed to be hardy to zone 6, but that can be iffy.

It is a pretty rose, but it may not be the rose that your mother really likes.

Here is a link to the 'Dr. Huey' rose page in the ATP database:

Rose (Rosa 'Dr. Huey')

Here are a couple of photos from that page:



If you don't want to plant a once bloomer, I think you need to purchase a new roses for your mother.

Lyn's right: You may want to buy some new roses for your mother, especially because you said she doesn't like climbers, and Dr. Huey is a climbing rose.

Tropicana and Mister Lincoln are still fairly easy to find, and she must have liked them if she chose to buy them from J&P.

Yep, your pictures look just like the Dr. Hueys in my yard. Huey was hardy in zone 5 when I lived there. I've grown Tropicana here in zone 6 and it thrives, and had to prune it nearly to the ground when I lived in zone 5.
Brenden, do you have a Menards store near you? They sell decent roses that will bloom all summer. They might not get the potted ones in for another month, though, but that's still a good time to plant.

Oh another thing....here the Huey roots grow so big and deep that we have stopped trying to dig them. We put a chain around them and hook it up to the tractor, put it in low gear and PULL.
I actually detached my retinas and damaged the optic nerve one year trying to hack out a monster root. Never hack at a big rose root!

Thanks again you two. Kind of sad really. I'm still going to do the justice of replanting them. Not their fault there other half died hahahha. Also how the heck could you two tell it was a climbing rose? I got no idea. Come on Scooby-Doo, fill me in ^-^ and yea we got a Menard yelling distance.


Also, have your roses ever thrown our a completely different, unique, unusual bloom?
https://youtu.be/fdJVx6nHBwA check that out.

That's a gorgeous rose in the video. That could have been a sport, but it also could have been caused by a virus or by a pesticide or some other chemical damage. It almost makes you wish for a virus to strike your red roses, doesn't it?

We know Dr. Huey's a climber because we have it growing in our gardens. Those photos in the post above were taken in my garden. See how the rose has climbed to the top of a pergola in the first one?

So, they act like clematis? Do they bend and/or stick?
Sorry I couldn't tell what yours is doing. Too far in pic

No, climbing roses don't stick to structures the way ivy does or twine around other plants the way a clematis does. You can weave them in and out of trellises or secure them to trellises and arbors with garden twine or tape of some kind. Clicking on the thumbnail photo will enlarge it, and then you'll see that part of the rose has been trained to stay behind the top bar for balance. It's also attached in some places with velcro tape, but the tape is green so it's fairly invisible.

Brenden ....

Here's a link to an article Zuzu wrote about training climbing roses:

http://garden.org/ideas/view/z...

I think it is one of the best articles I've read on the topic.

Thank you, Lyn.

I rest my case, when and if they bloom you will know. Also, I just ordered a Bacarra Rose Bush. Excited for that. Real dark red almost black color.

Holy hell. OK first for the record, when I reply to this post. Or anyone else...are all people who interacted with it informed on new responses? I didn't wanna make another thread .
So, after I did a light pruning of the roses 3 days ago, I wondered if I could save the stems instead of tossing them...so here they are. Very hard to tell I understand......but EVERY stem I stuck I a pot indoor with a makeshift humidity dome via cerrin wrap....... well. They have ALL grown leaves. Unbelievable.........

The answer to your first question is yes. People who added posts to this thread will receive a message on their home page to tell them that one of their watched threads has a new post.

As for the second thing, 3 days is too soon for a cutting to show signs of permanent life. It's more likely to be a case of continued growth. It's comparable to what happens when you put a bud rose in water and the bud opens into a bloom a few days later because its growth is continuing temporarily in the vase.

If you keep an eye on those cuttings, you'll eventually know whether they will grow roots and stay alive.