"Robert M. Lyons" wrote in message
. 166...
Hi,
I'm not new to roses but this has been a humbling experience. I
planted
25 bareroot plant in a raised bed alongside the southside of my house. I
hauled away the old dirt that was in there and replaced it with a mixture
50/50 of topsoil and nutribrew . I then planted my bare root roses in
early May. Prior to my planting I kept the roses with roots submerged in
a
large barrel of water for 4-5 days. All showed sprouts by the time I
planted them. When I planted them, I wrongly planted them too deep with
3-
4 inches of dirt covering the crown and on top of that I put down a layer
of cocoa mulch. Fast forward 4 weeks: I raised my plants but they all
appear to be doing poorly. The canes not the leaves have black spots on
them and the sprouts/buds seem to not look very robust. Much of the new
growth looks wilted. I haven't fertilized but my soil is quite organic.
Could the cocoa mulch had an adverse effect on the roses? Any ideas??

I'm surprised Sunflower didn't pick up on this, but soaking the roses for
4-5 days is excessive and could very well have created problems for the
plants down the road. One does need to rehydrate bare root plants, but the
soaking should be limited to a few hours or overnight - soaking longer than
that will deprive the roots of needed oxygen and you can actually drown the
plant by longer soaking if all the roots are submerged.

You also don't indicate where you are located, but deep planting of roses
(soil ABOVE the graft union) is typically recommended for colder climates.
Moving them again 4 weeks after planting this late in the season can also
have an adverse affect, as the roots - provided they were not compromised
initially by the long soaking - will have already started to establish
themselves, resulting in transplant shock.

To your defense, as Sunflower has aready indicated, the failure rate for
bare root roses is pretty high - even with high quality product. My nursery
receives bare root roses from very reputable wholesale sources in late
January/early February and they are potted up almost immediately - even then
we experience about a 25% failure rate. Best to purchase local container
grown roses whenever possible. You will get healthy, well-root stock already
in full leaf and the transition from container to ground is typically very
smooth and uneventful, even at the height of the rose season - June.

pam - gardengal