Hi John-
There are no stupid questions here. Many people willing to help!

Going from green buds to "Brown and withered" doesn't sound good. What concerns me is the "well soaked in a box" statement. Normally bare-root plants come wrapped in plastic with damp material inside... but not soaked. Did you add water to this box somehow? If so, that would not be good. (Though, sometimes a short 1 hour root soak in water or Agri-gel is recommended by companies like Nourse) Also, once I've planted a bare root plant, I water it then, but really not too much more (until it really starts leafing out), unless it is really dry. I would not water it every day, especially in zone 3. Have you tried gently pushing your finger 2-3" down into the dirt? You want a bit of dampness, but not wet. This sounds like an over-watering situation to me, but perhaps the experts will have other ideas.

Can you tell us what nursery you got the plants from? Do they all now look similarly poor?
-Glenn

That long of a soak could be a problem. The roots need to be kept damp until planted, but they need oxygen too and they won't get it while immersed in water.

I usually soak the roots on bare root plants, but just long enough to plump them up. Usually that is from 15 minutes to a couple of hours. Before I knew better I would routinely soak them overnight and they seemed to grow OK, but I have since learned that it can be a problem.

I suspect that they may have been somewhat damaged from the long soak and that they have been overwatered since. It sounds like it is too late.

I agree not to soak for more than 1/2 hr , or keeping the planting hole waterlogged, try scraping the bark of your plants and if you see any green, the plants are alive. and even if you think they are goners don't uproot them until next year...sometimes they come back from the dead... and no I don't mean from grafted rootstock.

I didn't mean for the last part of my post to sound the way it came out, only that on fruit trees, if the top dies and you get growth from the rootstock... well, the tree you bought is dead and only the rootstock survived. since the plants you have are not grafted ( alright some grapes are, but few grapes are grafted )and if they do come back you will have what you started out with, I have had a few plants that I could have sworn were in the great compost pile in the sky but came back much to my amazement!

I have soaked bareroot plants for 24 hrs to no ill effect but I think the combo of long soak plus overwatering may have starved the roots of oxygen. They were probably low on energy to begin with as well. Your plants are probably goners but nurseries generally won't refund or replace until there is no green when the bark is scraped, and that can take awhile.

Scott

Hi again,
Thanks for all the replies. Let me clarify a bit, well soaked was a misspeak I added no water to the box just made sure they were still damp. They were in plastic with wet paper until I planted them, the roots were never soaking in water. I apparently got some bad information as I was told to water them everyday for the first week after they were put in the ground. But I didn't think the green buds going to brown was a good thing. I purchased them from Pense Nursery who seem like some reputable fellas. Is there a better chance of them coming back? They seem to all be doing the same which seems a bit strange to me. The gooseberries did look a little iffy out of the box, the thorns were stripping from the bark. All of them, grapes, currants,etc,the buds were kind of a blanched white-green. I hate to think I killed the poor things. Thanks again everyone.

I've soaked bareroot roses for more than a week with no ill effects so I don't think your damp packing material or even a bit of overwatering would be enough to do them in. If you had planted them here three days ago it would have rained the whole time so a bit of water from a hose shouldn't kill them this quickly either.

Now, based on your description of the buds being a whitish color, this might be growth that occured in storage without sunlight. As such, it usually dies as soon as it is exposed to the sun. It basically gets sunburned and dies off. With a rose this isn't a big deal as it will sprout new leaves and regrow healthier foliage. I'm not sure how your plants will respond though. The raspberries will probably be fine since they'll regrow from the roots. The only thing you can do to prevent this problem is to protect the plants from sunlight. I'd back off a bit on the watering too. Bareroot plants aren't taking up much water from the soil this soon after planting because they are just waking up and don't have much leaf area to support yet.