That's good to know, Neal.
My practice here is to soak roses in the ground. I follow the advice given on a flyer that shipped with J&P roses decades ago: Place the rose in the hole, fill halfway with soil. Fill with water. Wait for the water to soak in. Repeat. Fill with dirt and water again. This seems to dampen the soil in the vicinity of the rose pretty well.Then I try to water generously three or four times a week until the canes have grown appreciably.
My own Palatine roses went into the ground almost two weeks ago and a few of them are setting leaves very vigorously. I find that multiflora rootstock seems to send out leaves a week or two sooner than Dr. Huey rootstock here. Roses from Regan delivered two weeks earlier are half a week behind in setting foliage. In years where there are late frosts, this is a benefit to HT roses. To more hardy rose cultivars, setting foliage earlier just makes for a longer growing season; so multiflora is better.
Palatine roses always arrive here heavy for their size and evidently well hydrated. (I always pay for three day air.) If I plant them promptly, the mortality rate is nearly zero. But they can dry out quickly. This year I left just one to plant on the second day. But I had not carefully sealed the plastic bag it came in and I think that failure might have finished off the plant. In cooler climates with higher humidity the outcome might have been very different.
