You sound just like me. I spend all fall and early winter planning where roses will be moved. You did a lot compared to me. That's very hard work!
What happens after I move stuff around? I realize there may have been a better way! But no, the aching back cannot do any more this season. I am fairly satisfied with what I'm doing. This all came about due to the fact that each of my 3 gardens have problems. One, my front garden has not that much sun and also sprinklers go on at night. Second garden (community garden) is veggies with roses. The racoons or possums tear it up looking for the big grubs. The new rose garden (my other plot in community garden) has a new fence that keeps most varmints out but the roses are sturdy there due to all the sunshine. And I am running out of room for all the peppers and tomatoes and eggplant seedlings I am putting in. A never ending project!

Geez, this message is on page three already and I haven't actually yet even moved a rose this spring, just getting ready to move them.

I started last year as soon as the weather was warm enough for me to work out there in this old lighter weight garden jacket I have which is no wear near as warm as my thick winter coat. Since I have been having to wear that winter coat still anytime I am doing stuff in the garden, I either wait to more stuff or freeze wearing the other. The problem is getting into the dirt to replant, I always make a mess of myself.

Rita, I always more roses when I need to. But then, I have a longer growing season than you, plenty of time for them to recover. It is not really that hard. And I too, love daylilies. They had my heart before roses did.
Kathy

I don't mean to hijack your thread Rita--but I wonder if you and Kathy could tell me what your favorite daylillies are. I want to add some this year, but don't have a clue where to start. They will be in a bed with alot of sun and I want them to reach at least 2 feet tall.

Any suggestions? Also, do you mail order yours? If so, from where?

Thanks!
Denise

Denise, You should go on the GW Daylily Forum. I am over there all the time. A great forum, just like this one. You need to find out what will grow for you from another person in TX. I am not even sure if in your area of TX if dormant Daylily grow or if you need to stick to evergreen daylilies.

Thanks Rita--I'll wander over there and ask some questions...I should have known there was a daylily forum--ha!

Mostly I shovel Prune, move only a few and plant a bunch out of the pot ghetto, only to do it all again the next season... Very slowly, year by year things look good next to each other, height wise, color wise, health wise and what I like wise...

Nine Roses moved today, tired already. One to pot up yet (small) and one small one to move yet but just could not do anymore today.

As far as the Daylilies go, many are dormant, which means they need winter cold. So if you are in a warm area of TX, they would not do. I know there are plenty of folks over on the daylily forum in TX, so they will be able to give better advice than I could.

I shovel pruned afew roses but mostly if they are not doing well, I try them in a new spot. If that still doesn't work then they are outtta here.

These roses I moved were not because there was anything wrong with the roses. I have ordered more roses coming this spring (like everyone else on this forum probably) and I could have put the little roses (from Heirloom) in the new spots and waited for the twigglets to grow. But I wanted a row of roses in front of a row of Lilacs that I put in last spring and wanted an instant effect, not something to wait on. So I moved nice sized roses already here and will plant the small roses in the empty spots from moveing.

It already looks nice just from having them there in front of the Lilacs. I had to admire them of course after planting. Those Lilac are in front of a shrub row that I am still working on. So there will be blooms in May(?) I think from the Lilacs, not sure when lilacs bloom. Then the row of roses bloom come early/mid June.

Then I have ordered about 400 (not a typo) lily bulbs to plant this spring. They have not arrived yet. But in front of the row of roses I dug a long trench and now the loose dirt is just piled up there in front of this long hole. When the Bulb lilies come, I will plant as many as fit in this trench so then I will have summer bloom after the first flush of roses. As I got Asiatic (blooms first) and then Oriental Lilies (bloom after Asiatic) I will have another bloom flush.

To finish off that area (for this year, I just work on expanding things every year) I will move over some clumps of daylilies over by the end of these rows and that should give me bloom in July.

I also did another trench for bulb lilies in my backyard in another area, I have another trench thing to do in another area and then I will just plant the rest of the bulb lilies scattered here and there around the garden.

I can't wait to see photos of your garden in bloom. I used to live on the south shore. Many, many moons ago.
Kathy

Wow, I'm sore and exhausted just reading about what you did. Looking forward to seeing pics of your handiwork!

Denise

I am dragging around today after the weekends planting. I had also moved a row of serviceberry shrubs back in a garden this past weekend. I thought that would be a big project as they were there for years but they surprisingly had very small root systems. I moved them to the back of the bed but first moved the hollyhocks that were in back of them. Whatever possessed me to plant shrubs in FRONT of perrenials, I will never know.

I realized after reading this post it sounded like I had done the two trenches yesterday but I had actually done the backyard trench and then after the roses moved into the front, I suddenly realised I could use the trench idea and plant a row of lilly bulbs in front of those just moved roses.

I have been really seriously working on this garden since 2001 when I started the mixed shrub border that now runs completely along the south side of my property. It looks like a woodland edge, which is the effect I wanted. In the summer when things are leafed out, you can not see my neightbors driveway directly adjacent to my property line when you are standing in the side yard. Look one way and you see a woodland edge. Turn the other way (towards my house) and see one of my rose gardens which is a bed up against the house on the south side.

My other big rose garden is the mostly floribunda rose garden in the front yard which starts litterally next to the sidewalk. I call it Floribundaville although there are some non Floribundas in there. Then there are two new sections. A shrub rose section that had roses but last year was enlarged with another double row of roses in front of those already there. Those shrub roses already there were ones I just moved and now I have baby roses coming from Heirloom that I will plant in the now empty section since looking from the street, it is in back of the double row roses put in last year.

The other new garden bed section done last year is a daylily bed which ties the two front yard rose gardens together and sits between them.

This spring will be the 4th year I am planting roses and I have about 150 already (more coming). Last year I got into daylilies heavily too and put in around 150 different onhes. Some I got more than one plant so that when I planted the daylilies they made an instant clump instead of having to wait. I also put in some rows of daylilies as I like the look of lots of something. This spring I already have about 100 daylilies ordered so I should have more than 250 daylilies after planting them all.

Rita,
Have you considered planting your roses in big pots and growing them that way until you finally decide where they will be permanently planted.
Moving pots is a lot easier on you and the roses than transplanting every year.

Ha, I don't much like roses in pots but I do have a few. My four rugosas are permantly in pots. Big Pots for the third year now. Plus I have a row of pots making a hedge of sorts that has a row of 6 Champlain roses also permantly in pots. Did those last spring and they came thru the winter just fine.

The Robusta that I just transplanted has been around. The first year I had it in a big pot. Then last spring I put it in the ground and of course this spring I moved it. Not moving it again.

I am having trouble picturing Your lilies IN FRONT of the roses. My OT lilies bloom over 6' tall. THe trumpets bloom about 5', and the oriental's are 5 or 6' too. Maybe you have mostly asiatics?

I plant my lilies between and behind my roses, as they bloom at most for a month then are done and I cut the bloomed out tops off so they just make nice foliage around the roses.

YOur garden will be so lovely when the roses and lilies bloom!

Here is a shot of mine last year. THere are actually paths through this that do not show in the picture!
{{gwi:228048}}

I do have mostley Asiatic Lilies. Plus I plant them between my roses in my rose beds also. This garden is on a downward slope so the lilies will be downhill from the roses. No problems the first year but by next year the lilies should get pretty tall. But by then the shrub roses will be taller too. This year they are shorter than they might be because I cut them back fairly heavily to make them easier to move. I know those roses did not have to be cut back just because I moved them, after all it is very early, but I did so to make things easier on myself.

Plus the row of Liliies is in front because I thought of it AFTER all the roses were moved and planted. There was no way I was going to redo them :-((

What a stunning picture of your garden. I really love both roses and lillies and I think they look really great together.

I don't think there is any hope for me. Not only do I move my roses but last year I got into daylilies also bigtime. So what was I doing out in the garden today? You guessed it, I was moving some clumps of daylilies. Its just that I keep expanding the gardens and either something just didn't get planted exactly were I thought I should have planted it, or the colors were so off when it finially bloomed or I am expanding and wanted to move something more established, therefore bigger impact to a newly created section.

I'll move a coupe each year as I make the newer beds. This year, I've already moved Pearl d'Or and Bonica to their new homes. I was sure to move them while they were still dormant and they seem to be taking the move well. Last year I moved a couple and the year before a couple more.

I figgured I was pretty much done with the rose moving for this year. Still have that one small one to move and one to pot up but that was it. Today however, I found out otherwise.

In my front yard starting right up against the street is my Florabundaville Rose Garden. It has a small stone retaining wall, less than two feet high. I had the contractor over today to estamate doing the stone wall all the way over accross the front. But he thinks the only way to match the stones (its a mixed rock stacked stone wall) is to pull that part down and start over. Then mixing those rocks there with the new ones to be brought in. He told me it should take 5 pallets of stones. So if we get palletts of different types of rocks then we can have the effect I am looking for.

But doing it this way means dig up the front row of 4 Sunsprite, some Sunflares and a Julia Child.

Really this guy is very good and the same one that has done all my terracing work for me plus he also cuts my grass every two weeks come growing season.

I want the finished effect but I sure didn't want to mess with those roses in front.

So, the short wall I had done in front of my house is done. It really turned out exceptionally well. I really did not want to have to dig up the roses this late as they were fully leafed out but no choice if I wanted the wall done (and I really wanted it done this spring). So they said don't worry, we will replant the roses in a temp spot and as soon as that side of the wall is done, we will put them back.

Well, I plant my roses deep and 4 of the roses to be moved are SUNSPRITES that I have had now for three springs. They are going own root. The idiots planted them with the new roots completely out of the ground up in the air. All the new growth wilted and the roots were drying out. I yanked them up and put them bare root into my 35 gallon above ground patio pond, which was the only soaking place I had big enough to put 6 fully leafed out rose shrubs.

6 days later they got the project finished and decided they finially had time to replant those roses. They looked really bad the first two days after planting (all wilted) but fortunately look good now.

My pond had to be recleaned as I had already done my spring cleaning and all that soil stuck to the roots made for lots of gooby green algae growth. But now finially, all is well.

When you move your roses around, do you plant them in the same spot another rose was in? Is this OK to do?

Sometimes I plant in the same spot. As long as the roses was healthy, no reason not to.

I never did move all the roses I wanted too this spring so there will be afew to move next spring. The moved roses are all doing well but when you look at the buds set compaired to ones not moved, they have far less. Oh well. IN time they will settle in and catch up.

I had to move two roses today as the spacing just would not work for adding roses unless I did. One did not do badly as the root ball came up but the other (Well Being) totally fell apart and I just had what might as well have been bare root. I transplanted it but all the flower buds are completely wilted no matter how much water I give it,

I am going to loose the spring bloom but I juist hope the shrub recovers. Usually I move them much earlier than this or the root ball stays in one peice and its not so bad for the rose. Not this time.