Hello "E" and welcome to Portland, not for
nothing called the city of roses.

If I were you I will do nothing to those roses
until the fall. First of all you need to identify them
to determine when are you supposed to prune
them. Then you will need to dig some decent
bed where to house them once you decide to
move them, and that is no trivial matter.

If you wait until after the summer you will be
able to tell what kind of roses they are (OGR
or modern ones meaning HT) what color are
they and whether or not they are one: healthy
enough to warrant the time and trouble to
move them, two: whether all the colors will
work when planted together) -

To transplant 30 roses you will need more than
good will and good intentions. The roots of those
plants are probably by now ringing the doorbells
in China, which means that transplanting then
this time of the year to a shallow hole is a death
sentence. To dig and amend the ground for those
many roses will require some time and planning.

Remember also that different roses require different
pruning techniques and different times to prune them.
Those who bloom in old wood will not be happy at
all if they are pruned at the same time as the ones who
absolutely must be pruned before going dormant.
I am not telling you this to frighten you of course,
but to spare you the nearly certain fate of having
your roses die on you if you just dig a hole in the
middle of your lawn and put them there.

Roses are voracious eaters and drinkers, they are
the Henry VIII of the flower king/queendom. So you
also have to make sure that there is water readily available
for them in that center bed, be it by soaker hoses or
if you want to hand water them, by having a spigot in
that side of the house. My suggestion is that you arm
yourself with a camera instead of a shovel and/or
a tiller. Take pictures of each and every one as they
bloom to make it easier to identify them. And that
will give you time to use some clay buster and manure
in the new bed that will heat up appropriately during the
summer so you can start moving your roses in the late
fall, and of course will give you a chance to prune them
then without any problems.

Right now is too late to start anything except a general
cleaning of the canes. The roses are already awake and
need to concentrate in what they do best, growing and
blooming. To interrupt the cycle is asking for problems
and roses are far too wonderful to perpetuate the
misinformation about how difficult they are and so forth.

Here is a link if you want to contact a consulting rosarian
to help you identify your roses. As an alternative you can
post the pictures of your roses and I hope between all of
us we can help you find out what are you growing there.
I will not volunteer for the HTs but I am more than
willing to take a stab at the OGRs where I am a little more
familiar.

Welcome to Portland and to rose growing. Please don't let
anyone tell you that it is difficult. I can think of many other
plants more difficult and much less generous than roses and
they deserve their reputation for beauty but not their reputation
for being difficult.

http://portlandrosesociety.org/


Allegra