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The next time you are at your nursery or home and garden store, take a look at the roses for sale. During the growing season, the majority of roses are sold containerized, or container-grown. Selecting these roses is much the same as selecting any containerized garden plant; checking for healthy foliage and inspecting the roots are the key to selecting the right plant.

Sometimes roses are sold bare-root, almost only while dormant. If you intend to buy a bare-root rose, make sure that you are able to plant it or heel it in immediately.

When selecting your bare-root rose, check the stems to make sure there is no distorted growth or crossing branches. The stems should be sturdy and have no indications of disease or damage.

Are the buds withered, or solidly plump? Find the graft union, which is the junction where the top growth of the plant has been grafted onto the roots; you’ll see a woody bump near the base of the stem, and it should be complete and firm.

Take care with root inspection. As you’d expect, you want to select the roses that have unbroken roots that are even and healthy in appearance. If you find lopsided roots, or roots that have been cut back too much, do not purchase that plant; it will not anchor in the soil and the rose will not receive proper moisture and nutrients.

A few minutes’ careful inspection will result in smarter purchases, leading the way for a beautiful bloom rose in your garden’s future.

Tags: roses, rose+gardening, bare-root+roses, planting, gardening, nursery

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