First of all, I love your little shrine. Second, there's a lot of good comments made by other members; all I can add are a few random comments. Rose replant disease is a very mysterious sindrome,as far as I know,they still don't know what actually causes it. I very often read that over in the USA this doesn't exist...BUT??? Here in Europe, I gather it is supposedly very bad in England, or maybe the UK, and less bad here in Italy. I base this statment on the comments made by nurseries in the two countries ; an English nursery said: if you must replant a rose where another has grown, replace all the soil,and add lots of organic matter,mychrorizza, and best of all, plant the new rose in a cardboard box placed inside the hole, with new soil inside the box, so the new roses' roots will be protected from the surrounding soil for the first year or so...I forget what else. The Italian attitude is more laid back: if you must replace, dig your new hole next to the old one,the new hole with new soil doesn't have to be quite so big (18 x 18 inches),etc. A Dutch nursery basically said just add about a wheelbarrow -full of new soil. The fact is whenever I dig out an established rose, I always tend to have a big hole remaining anyway,so I would be replacing the soil in any case. However, I do have an instance in my garden where even taking the extreme precautions does not seem to have worked ; the "new" rose has been ther for years now, but refuses to flourish, so I plan to dig it out in the fall and put something else-not a rose-in that spot.
