Planting roses

After the plants have arrived:

On delivery, the new bare-root roses look roughly like the specimen in the picture on the right. 

1. Unpack and soak

Unpack the plants straight away after receiving them and put them in water. The water should cover the roots, the graft union and part of the shoots.
The roses should stay in the water for at least 4-6 hours before planting.

If you cannot plant on the day of arrival, make sure the water does not heat up too much and that the roses are exposed to direct sun as little as possible. Storage like this is possible for up to several days, but the sooner you plant, the better.

2. Prepare the planting site

You can prepare the planting site while the roses are soaking.

If the rose is going into a pot, the pot should be large enough and above all deep enough. Make sure you use a high-quality substrate with no or as little mineral fertiliser as possible. That is rather a disadvantage here.

If you want to plant the rose in a bed, dig a planting hole that the rose can easily fit into. About 40 cm in diameter and depth is a good guide.
In places with very permeable soil we recommend adding rose soil. The same applies to this as described above for the pot substrate. In places with heavy soil, adding sand to the excavated soil is a good idea.

Oscorna soil activator can be used in all locations and improves the soil properties.

3. Shortening the bare-root roses

Remove water shoots or shade shoots with sharp scissors. These can appear in spring after the roses have been stored cool and dark over winter. Further development is not affected by this.

Shortening the shoots

- if the rose is planted in the open ground: 

shorten the shoots to about 10 cm above the graft union, making the cut just above a bud. 

When planting bare-root roses in autumn, the shoots can be left a little longer and cut back further in spring. 

- if the rose goes into a pot:

shorten the shoots to 5-8 cm above the graft union, if possible just above a bud

Shortening the roots

Cut the main roots back by 1-2 cm; do not cut the fibrous roots, or only slightly. Thicker roots up to 1 cm in diameter without branches can also be cut back somewhat further.

further shortening of the roots for planting in a pot

cut the thick main roots back far enough to fit into the pot, and only trim the fine fibrous roots slightly
 

Planting in the bed

In open ground, set the rose so that the graft union is about 5 cm below the soil. Then you should mound up the soil well around it until the tips of the shoots stick out a few cm.

Then pour at least two watering cans full of water into the well-shaped watering ring. Take particular care in the first three to four weeks that the soil around the rose and the mounded-up soil does not dry out.

Depending on your garden soil, adding special rose soil is not necessary. If you like, you can use soil activator from Oscorna. On no account should mineral fertiliser be given in the first 4-6 weeks or even mixed into the soil excavated from the planting hole.

Planting in a pot

First, you should get a suitable substrate. Make sure the substrate is not pre-fertilised, or as little as possible. If in doubt about the ingredients, definitely prefer organic rose soil to a run-of-the-mill potting compost. Then choose a sufficiently large pot and fill it with the substrate until the graft union of the rose stays slightly below the rim of the pot when you place the plant on the substrate. Now fill in all around and press the substrate down a little as you go. If the pot is not tall enough, you can also make a slight mound on top, which you should then renew with moist substrate after watering if necessary. Anything that covers the shoots protects the plant and helps in the first weeks.

After potting, water vigorously or dunk the whole thing.