Their container roses have to be picked up at the nursery, so I think they send them as bare-root plants. They ship their bare-root plants in January and February, so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure they'd be much larger than the own-root plants sold by Heirloom and the other exclusively own-root nurseries, and I've bought bare-root own-root bushes in the past, but they've been OGR's or landscape shrubs. I want my Austins to be grafted.