On 21 Apr 2006 16:07:58 -0700, "colleen"
wrote:

Hello all,
I am a new to roses and coule really use some help. I have had one
rose bush for a year, and this year planted 20 more. Some of the new
rose bushes that I planted roughly a month ago (were bare root roses)
are lower in the ground than I would like them to be.

From what I have found, it sounds like the best time to dig up and
replant roses is when they are dormant. However, since these roses
have been in the ground for only a month, would it be better to move
them now (before the roots are well established), or to wait until they
are dormant? They currently have leaves, but no buds just yet. The
temp where I am (TN) is about 70's for the high right now.

I would really appreciate any advice please.

Thank you

I'm not sure what you mean by "lower in the ground than you would
like", but my suggestion is just to leave them alone for the time
being.They're actually recovering from transplant shock and you don't
really want to subject them to that again so soon if you can help it.
You WANT the roots to get well-established, even if you're going to
move them later. By disrupting them now, you run the very real chance
to sabotaging their future well-being.

Having said that though, roses are fairly tough little buggers, so if
you WERE to replant them, you'd want to take as large of a root ball
as humanly possible to avoid damaging any roots. And you'd still have
that problem of them being "lower in the ground", if I understand your
meaning, which I'm still not quite sure I do. If you think you've
planted them too deep, you can always carefully pull back some of the
soil, but be careful not to nick any canes, especially around ground
level.

It would be helpful if you told us a little about the plants
themselves. Were they bare-root plants or potted? Are they grafted or
own-root (the former has a little fist-shaped mass of wood dividing
the canes from the roots)? And what kind of roses are we talking
about. Perhaps you could elaborate on what you're talking about. I
suspect that you have grafted roses that you are afraid that you've
planted with the graft too deep. Is that your worry? If so, it's not
bad if they're just below the surface. If they're more than 2 inches
below the soil surface, then you can do what I suggested and roll back
a little of the soil using a small garden trowel. When you get close
to the graft itself, you could take a stiff brush and brush away some
of the soil. Take the excess soil and build a little dam all the way
around the plant (a collar, if you will). This will help collect
moisture.