Oh, Sorry Zuzu. You are right, I'm thinking of Polly on Iris forum. We were comparing size of rhizomes from different climates. i love looking at your posts with the new roses in boxes, then the shots of roots. Really helps me when ordering. It would be super if more people took photos of shipments and posted them.
It also helps me when vendors show photos of plants they ship so there's no surprises.

Cindi - if they showed what they're REALLY selling, would they be selling?

Some would, some wouldn't.

Welllll,
I got my Edmunds rose order today. Hmmm. The roses, for the most part, look good. One has a root wrapped around the other roots which concerns me. Don't know if I should cut it, the way I would a tree with a constricting root? Zuzu? Anyone?

Yes, I would cut the constricting root.

I received my order from Edmunds' Roses a few weeks ago and I'm not impressed. I think this is the last time I'm ordering from them. They have new roses that no one else has, but the ones they send are rather pitiful looking. I think I'd rather wait a year or two until those roses are available from a more reputable place.

Another thing about my order...way back on this thread, I had questioned whether Edmunds would notify when shipping. Well, they DID! They sent me an email saying the shipment was on its way. So I did get about 48 hours notice, which was fine. They must have been watching our weather. Normally in March, we're pretty dang cold. This year we're having June weather in March. I think we hit 80 today. I'm soaking the new roses for a few hours while I make labels. They'll get planted tomorrow, and hopefully the forecast is correct, and we'll get light rain off and on for the next week.

Thanks, Zuzu.

Edmunds is replacing the rose with the constricting root. I am very very pleased with their customer service. The five roses I got from them look real healthy. If Palatine is really better than this order, I will be ecstatic!

Cindi - Just wait 'til you see the root system on Palatine's roses. It'll blow Edmunds' outta the water, seriously. But I do like Edmunds' customer service.. I had one croak from the 3 I ordered last year (Royal Amethyst) and they gave me credit towards another rose w/o any hesitation.

Believe it or not, some of the biggest roots I ever had shipped to me were on roses from Wayside about 6 years ago. They were monsters, almost like those that Zuzu showed us from EuroDesert.
They were much bigger than what I had been getting from J & P every year for the 20 years before that. I've always taken pics of shipments as they come in, and kept notes on what died and why. Definitely, bigger is better on roots!

I used to love Wayside. They carried so many different roses and sent such big plants. Wayside was the first place I ever bought Austin roses. They carried the full line before anyone else did.

I've never successfully ordered anything from Wayside. A few years back, I ordered like $75 dollars worth of plants in April. By June I hadn't received anything, but they had charged my card immediately. I called them, got a big run-around (they had just been bought up, or in the process of or something). Called them back, lady stated that everything I had ordered (and already had paid for) was out of stock. Explained that they cannot legally charge my credit card without shipping the items. The lady then offered me credit for the following year as it was against their policy to issue refunds for out-of-stock plants. I told her in polite but firm language (no naughty words used) that if she didn't issue me a refund within 24 hours I was going to go to the Attorney General in South Carolina and file a complaint for fraud. Imagine that, I got a refund in my bank account the next day.

They've gone through some changes of ownership and changed horrendously in the process. At one time, though, they were the best source for a great variety of roses. Jackson & Perkins were good too, but they concentrated mainly on their own roses. Wayside used to send out a rose catalog that was incredibly impressive. I still have the ones from 2001 and 2003. Each has 47 pages, with as many as 6 or 7 roses on each page. Their plants were grafted beautifully and never failed to grow. I still have all of the Wayside roses I ordered in those days. The prices were great and they offered package deals.

In 2001, for example, they offered "Wayside's Classic English Rose Collection" -- 1 each of William Shakespeare, Charlotte, English Garden, Gertrude Jekyll, and Fair Bianca for a total price of $39.95 for all 5 plants.

Wayside's the first mail-order source I ever saw selling Austins and Buck roses.

That's exactly where I got my first austin roses! They had a collection of Tamora, Winchester Cathedral, and mary Rose, and I still have them. i dug them up and moved them from my other house in the middle of summer, and they survived. I guess that's why I cringed when I paid $25 ea from Austin this year.

I'm afraid I never was a fan of Wayside. I've always loved their catalogue. There have been years when I ordered a lot from them. But everything failed in a year or two. Not sure I got any roses from them, though.

My first David Austin roses were from a Jackson & Perkins catalogue: Graham Thomas, Fair Bianca, and ... I forget, in the early nineties. GT got "green giant syndrome" growing quickly to six ft in each direction and bearing no flowers. Fair Bianca never grew at all, bearing one or two. Took me a while to really get the English Rose thing. But now I'm hooked. Abe Darby and Crocus Rose are two of the best roses in my garden, though I think Abe could turn into a monster without some pruning.

I agree that on a cost per rose basis in the first year, DA roses are pricey. But when I consider the survival rate - DA roses are survivors - I think perhaps at the end of three years they are less expensive per surviving plant than those from pretty much any other supplier I can think of. Unless they are moved at the wrong time of year, they just keep going and going. Not always true for roses from VG, ARE, RVR, Edmunds, etc.

Just called up Edmunds to see when my roses were coming in. All 3 that I ordered (I ordered when their website was down, so had to go by memory, which is NOT advisable for me!) were backordered. I had ordered Music Box, Twilight Zone, & Sparkle and Shine. I'm not worried about Twilight Zone or S&S as I know I can get those locally. Music Box, however, I believe I cannot. Bleh. They're expecting to ship mine out in the later part of April, so I still have a few weeks before I have to panic.

Yay! Just got notification that my order from Edmunds was shipped out last week & I should get them on Wednesday! Yay!! Can't wait! Music Box, Twilight Zone & Sparkle and Shine.

Music Box just started blooming for me! Whimsy, which arrived in the same shipment as Music Box, has not broken dormancy yet! It's still green, but no growth. We've had lots of days in the 80s, so what gives?
All the others I ordered from Edmunds are growing.

actually, I re-read my letter from Edmunds. They're shipping only Music Box. The other two must still be on backorder. Bleh.

OMG, they lost a customer. Seriously. For what I paid & what I got? I'll just wait a little while & find them either locally or through a different seller. This picture really doesn't express how pathetic this rose really is. It looks like a rose that comes out of a Bodybag, seriously. Not to mention I'm *hoping* that it's Music Box.. there was NO tag. There's only 1 set of "leaves" that's on the cane, all the other sets of leaves are on the bud union. I'm sorely disappointed.

oh no !! I'm so sorry :0(