From: karenp@sybase.com (Karen Paulsell)
Subject: Re: Moving roses...
Date: 5 Oct 92 19:36:52 GMT

I moved several rosebushes during our mild N. Cal winter, at their
most-dormant time. I pruned first, much better for my skin, and the
bush!

The Head Rosarian at the Oakland Rose Garden, when asked about moving
rose bushes, basically said "Don't worry about, you can bare-root them
when you move them, they'll be OK, some will even be better than
before they were moved." He recommended blasting the soil off the
root-ball with a hose nozzle.

What I did: dug a big "donut", about 20" from the crown of the bush,
cutting whatever roots were near the surface at the outside diameter
of the donut. I dug this round pit maybe a foot or so down, then used
the shovel to sever as many roots from underneath the bush, and to try
to pry it up, as I could. Sometimes, I could get it loose, with some
soil still attached, and it would be light enough to lift and
move. Other times, I had to get out the nozzle, the pruning shears,
etc., to cut the various roots and reduce the root ball to something I
could carry.  Some of them wound up practically bare-rooted,
anyway. The big donut, deeper than the part of the root-ball that I
was aiming for, provided a space for the water to run into, so that I
wasn't working in a deep muddy pool of water.

Now, I had the new hole ready before I took the bush out of the
ground, so I could quickly set it in, tuck the roots into place, and
joggle the loose soil, firmly but gently, around the roots.  Made a
nice watering basin, gave it a good drink. Worried a lot.

Out of maybe 10 bushes, one that was pretty sickly to start with did
not survive, the rest of them have. One or two looked kind of
depressed for a year, but are doing better now. The rest are strong
and fine!  And these weren't recently-planted bushes, some of them
have these huge gnarly crowns. Big guys!

Hard work that I would not have done for lesser roses, but the
previous owner was a collector and cherisher of roses, and these are
beautiful flowers in many colors. I moved them mainly because they
were dotted about in the lawn, impossible to water the grass without
sprinkling the roses and spreading diseases, impossible to mow without
lacerating my legs.