When we had a house fire and the builder who was mending everything had to take out a mature plum tree to build the new chimney, I got a written estimate from a nursery for a replacement, and our insurance company paid that amount.

So, as a place to start with I would look for LARGE potted roses (some of the nurseries have them), and use that. Sometimes you can find a climbing rose at nurseries which they have let grow tall. I would find the largest and most expensive one, and just use that for all of the roses - you are not going to be able to fine tune it much, I think.

Of course, if you just cut your roses back to healthy undamaged growth most of them will recover in time, but it will take years for many of them to regain their size.

One last thought - if the contractor has liability insurance, you may have better luck getting some money out of them. Good Luck!

Jackie

Linda, that is horrible. I've never had crews abuse plants that badly. I did have to have a lot of digging in my yard, and they unfortunately had to remove some trees and roses (I tried to dig up as many as I could). They will probably offer to replace them (as they did here) but You most likely won't be getting Austins or OGRs.

But, having had to cut back many large roses for various reason, they will grow back. Just make sure they get a lot of sun and water and it will happen.

Just wanted to say I am sorry that happened to you. That is heartbreaking.

Definitely do as Jackie recommends at the least. I'm sorry for all the damage and unease the work has caused.

My parents had their home fumigated this summer and several plants were marked off for removal or pruning to enable the tent to be secured. I was able to save nearly everything that was marked off by transplanting into pots or pruning, but several plants deemed perfectly safe were harmed or killed in the process.

They were not very receptive to paying for replacements, but since I had done a substantial amount of work that made the job easier they covered the loss of two clematis, two roses, a few hemerocallis, and a Brugmansia. It's difficult to put a price on maturity and hard to explain the loss of something you cared for and watched develop to people who don't care about plants. Luckily most of the plants my parents lost weren't mature, but the fumigators did severely prune back a Lady Banks older than me. It won't put on a very good show next spring after I had trained it around a chimney for them this year.

Jay

Thank you all for your comments. It helps to know that others share the same affection for their roses too.

Jay, I agree it is difficult to place value on a rose that started out as a mail order baby that has now matured. Not to mention that this is our Fall flush and I cried about the damage as well as all those beautiful blooms that were destroyed.

I was shocked at the disregard for my property. I was raised to be respectful. I greeted the painters each morning and ensued in brief conversation. So wondered why they did not knock on my door to mention they had a problem with the roses. I would have tied them back out of their way. So upsetting!

Linda

I hate to diss the honorable brotherhood/sisterhood of Painters, who have a hard and unpleasant job, and I'm sure there must be some painters who understand and respect horticulture; but my lifetime experience is that--unlike most of those in the other construction-related trades, who readily understand and respect one's enthusiasm for such hands-on hobbies as horticulture--painters simply do not like and do not care about plants (likely because they tend to get in the way of painting!). This very morning, I was thinking about a strain of Wax Begonias I originally grew from seed decades ago and which I had, over the years, carefully propagated and preserved because they were distinctive and the strain ('Othello') had long been out of commerce. The last time I had the house painted, the painters simply trampled them all. Seeing me looking at the situation with dismay, they asserted "Oh, they'll grow back," which of course they didn't. Bah! One more sensitive crew of painters, in their initial eyeballing of the proposed paint job, asked if I had any plants which I wanted them to be particularly careful with. Naturally, I wanted to say "All of them!"; but I decided to be a little reasonable for once and so indicated that two plants were sacrosanct: My Rosa hemisphaerica and my Camellia 'Shikibu'. And indeed they treated these plants with extreme care. What I'm getting at is that it's possible for painters and their clients to come to a somewhat satisfactory understanding about plants in a client's garden; but there has to be willingness and a "meeting of the minds" beforehand . . . and painters alas usually don't seem to have this willingness.

After the first time contractors damaged my roses, I now tell them that I will do the pruning or removal of any rose that is in their way. Then I have them sign a contract that says any rose killed will cost them the price of replacement plus $10 for every year it has been in the ground. For damage but still alive is also $10 for every year in the ground. I haven't had a problem since.

A story for future reference for anyone who is having their houses painted: A few years ago we had our 3 story Victorian house painted, and one wall of shingles replaced, and the roof repaired, all at once. The house was surrounded on three sides by 3 stories of scaffolding for 5 weeks - that was why we took advantage of that to have everything done at once.

I had at that time 4 huge roses on two sides of the house which were growing all the way up to the roof (star jasmine ditto on the third shady side), as well as at least a half dozen large but shorter roses near the house. The large climbers covered 100% of the walls, so obviously the house could not be painted with them there. I asked for advice on this forum, and followed it. We cut back all of the roses ourselves, to about 7 feet tall by 3 feet wide for the huge climbers, and smaller for the others. We then covered them in burlap - protected them from the paint, but still let in air.

The real thing we were able to do was because my DH is a retired general contractor.(I take some credit because I put out home made cookies and coffee each morning, but he really did it). He stayed home every day and chatted up the painters, builders, etc. He helped them a bit, exchanged stories, etc. etc. , all the while checking their work, because the painting company owner came by each evening to also do that, and always listened to my DH and had things corrected. My DH explained to the painters at the beginning that they were not to touch the roses, and were to stay off the beds (except where he had put large boards & pieces of wood for them to walk on when they needed to paint the first story). By the end of the first day, of course, I noticed that they were using my flower beds as places to stage supplies and equipment. My DH had a talk with all of them, basically begging for their cooperation so that I woiuld not kill him! My wrath was said to be astounding and horrible. We giggled about it, but it worked! They must have all had wives they did not want to annoy...

After that everything went wonderfully. By the end of the 5 weeks, the roses were sticking new growth out through the burlap, and they all thrived and the huge climbers recovered their height within a year or two. The only plant we lost was the aforementioned plum tree. I do believe that most of the roses actually benefitted from this one time hard pruning.

So, hands on and constant vigilance is what saved my borders - I don't think painters really hate plants, but they definitely only see them as some stuff that is in their way.

Jackie

When plumbers came out to work in the yard on the main line, they stomped plants and threw trash in the beds even though I put several large trashcans out nearby for them to use. I have seen painters and cement workers pour old paint water and cement water from wheelbarrows into beds. I don't trust any worker no matter what they say. My next door neighbor had patio demolition done and the guys threw construction trash over the wall into another neighbor friend's garden so they wouldn't have to wheelbarrow it out front.

I would dig up anything you care about and put down old plywood for them to walk on. Wrap up anything you cant move with shade cloth and flag it with caution tape. Then tell them you're putting up nanny cams to catch any dumping activities. I always tip the guys who are careful around my plants when the job is done just to say thanks.

'I hate to diss the honorable brotherhood/sisterhood of painters'

So don't then.

As a daughter of a contractor, I simply do not recognise this singling out of painters as brutalisers of horticulture.

I do sympathise, having had a similar experience this year with a firm of roofers...but their behaviour and attitudes were part of a bigger picture with cost-cutting and unskilled workers at the heart of the problem. A reputable company, with skilled workers, should have recognised the potential problems onsite and had an ongoing dialogue with you, the property owners and customer, as to the best way to proceed. Although drinks and cookies are a nice gesture, they should not be necessary in order to require a modicum of respect...but clear instructions, preferably in writing, are priceless. At the least, a reputable business should have extensive public liability insurance. Get quotes from a good nursery which includes delivery and installation of mature plants. Should they refuse to settle on a decent compensatory package, I suggest a little Twitterstorm or facebook flaming.

Um Odinthor,

'Fraid my snarkiness has not come out of a vacuum. My dad did a full 7 year apprenticeship - he was a skilled signwriter, able to mix his own paints and demonstrate a range of decorative finishes - stippling, marbling, gilding, woodgrain, ragging... maintaining high standards of workmanship. This sort of experience and education is simply not available today and there has been a systematic downgrading of skills across the whole spectrum of manual work. It is enraging, dealing with the cowboys and yahoos who masquerade as skilled tradespeople...while wages have also been pressurised downwards for the past 35 years. This is a disservice to everyone except managers and employers