Yup, that's a body bag. Get 'em fresh off the truck, the canes dry out quickly (especially if the store keeps them indoors). The roses may be misnamed or virused or both. When you open the bag, the roots may be cropped...um...chopped off...um...little stubs. Or they may be nice roses that will make you very happy. Good luck. And save the receipt.

When I first started growing roses, I purchased 6 climbing roses at Walmart and 5 of the 6 were virused and definitely 1 was mis-labeled. I am sure it could happen with other stores too but the percentage seems rather high for me at Wal-mart.

Home Depot always has a huge selection. My experience ( backed up by my neighbor) is that 50% or more are not the variety on the package. Most will be virused and not grow well. Some have little to no roots. You may get lucky and get a rose that is a winner- maybe even the color you wanted. I got a fabulous pink climber of unknown variety this way but most never amounted to anything. If you spend 18 dollars and only get one good rose out of it, you may as well go buy a good potted rose with strong roots. I used to buy the bagged roses to try out the color, fragrance, etc. But lately I feel the labels are put on at random. Sad that people don't get what they pay for. I have written to the big box stores about it, but every year is the same situation. How many people will be turned off to roses because of this dishonesty?

We have bought "body-bagged" roses that had roots chopped off to ONE INCH. I am NOT exaggerating.
We took that one right back to Green Thumb Nursery.
The manager said: "I could grow this rose just fine!"
I said: "FINE! YOU grow it then!"

We haven't bought one in AT LEAST 10 years, and we're not even tempted by the poor abused, mis-labelled things.

Jeri

Talk about raining on my parade!!! LOL

cecily/jeri after i read your posts i ran outside and opened up the bags. Looks like the rose on the right has a broken root that will need to be pruned off leaving not much behind. The rose on the left looks OK to me. What do you all think?

malibu rose-I thought about RMV-figured you takes your chances if you're not buying VID-but 5/6? that's not even gambling :(

kittymoonbeam (love that name) the mislabeling is the most horrid thing i've heard. That's just WRONG.

"Thanks everyone" she smiles as she reaches for her rose colored glasses.

grrr-no image-try again
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Those look ok. I have 4 roses that were body bags and they are doing well. But I probably bought about 15 others that never made it. And I think the Iceberg that I have (one of the body bags) is virused.

I don't buy them anymore because they usually don't make it and then you waste time and resources. Even at $5 they are not usually worth it.

Those don't look too bad. Trim off the broken roots and trim back a bit from the tips of the other roots. The canes are plump and green. They've broken dormancy but no 'potato' growth. Soak 'em and plant 'em, in a couple of months you'll find out what color they are.

I've seen worse. MUCH worse!

As to Virus -- Roses introduced from 1920 on, and up to the last few years, are almost certain to have been infected, and I wouldn't look for Virus-Indexed stock in H.D. body bags.

When people say "some" were virused, what they generally mean is that some SHOWED SIGNS OF virus. But a rose can go for decades without SHOWING the virus. So just because you didn't see it, that don't mean it ain't there.

If virus-free is meaningful to you, I would recommend avoiding such sources.

Jeri

I gave a program 6 years ago and picked up a grade 1 Wal*Mart packaged rose to use as a sample of why I never purchase bagged roses. I was not disappointed as you can see.
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The discount stores begin shipping these as soon as they are harvested. This occurs in December and January for all roses that are packaged. They are stored until they are shipped as the season progresses to colder growing zones.
Being in zone 11, your roses are fresh so should do alright. The roots, although smaller than most mail order bare roots, look to be OK and with some proper care, should be fine. If you have the correct variety as pictured on the label is questionable.
BTW, the bare root pictured was soaked and survived after being potted and grown to make sure it would. I then gave it away.

I agree with Karl. Pot them up and give them lots of love. Alyssum or violas or other small flowers like toadflax look great around the edge while the plants are leafing out. Stawberries are cute too spilling over the edge. We used to pot up so many like this to sell at a fundraising before Valentine's Day. You are fortunate that your plants have some roots.

The two do not look bad at all; they have decent roots - quite unusual in case of bagged roses. Now the next issue will be: are they true to their name on the bag? Are they virused or not? These questions will be answered later. Rose Mosaic Virus can show up sometimes in the first year, sometimes 4 or 5 years later.

What i think i have learned so far:

-Walk right on by those $7 Home Depot roses that just came in (and are baking in the hot sun)-Thanks everyone.

-$5 times 19 roses minus the fourteen that died equals about the same as four robust, properly tagged, 3 gallon plants-Thank-you buford.

-Tip prune your roots for more lateral development-Thank-you Cecily.

-Generally, they are all virused, unless special precautions have been taken-Thank-you Jeri.

-I'm lucky i live in zone 11 (and Karl must be a wizard if he got that thing to grow!)-Thank-you Karl

-Just because it has roots doesn't mean it will grow-at least not into what you think-Thank-you Kittymoonbeam and Ceterum.

I don't buy them bagged roses either,but about 6 yrs ago,I did buy a bagged Belinda's Dream Tree rose and planted it in a big pot.Its been beautiful every year.The trunk on it now looks bad,as bark has peeled off it,and it might not make it this winter,but i thought the same thing last winter and it made it and bloomed all summer.It even has blooms on it now,so some times you luck out with a bagged rose.

Jean

LOL, Karl, the roses I bought at chain stores many years ago had roots like yours not like mauirose's. They weren't black though, and I managed to grow most of them. But so many turned out to be mislabeled and virused that I am not even tempted any more by chain store roses. Since growing HTs is a lot of work and expense (fertilizers, fungicides, etc), if I have to discard a rose after 5 years of nursing, that makes it very expensive for me, even if the rose itself was only $3-$5.

Mauirose, I hope that your roses will be true to their name and grow very well for you. Granada and Oklahoma should be very, very fragrant . A few visitors have told me that Paradise is fragrant in my garden. Alas, I cannot smell it. But it is a good bloomer.

In your climate virus may not even show up and the plants may turn out to be very productive bushes. I truly wish you luck.

I've bought body bags and gotten some great roses. I've ordered roses from very reputable nurseries and gotten duds and mislables. Either way you pays your money, you takes your chances.

I think if you are in a zone where they sell them now, they will have a better chance.

However, they are a lesser grade rose than most of the ones sold by other vendors and I'd estimate that most of the ones I had that died, died of canker. So I'd say they are handled more roughly than the top grade roses you pay full price for.

Some box stores are now selling potted roses in interesting varieties. And they are a bit more 10-15$. I'd go with those before I went with the body bags.

I don't buy them anymore and wouldn't reccommend them but I bet I could count a hundred roses in my garden that came from body bags originally that are in superb shape.

buford that's the devil of it. The big box stores here occasionally get in a 3 gallon potted rose but these are largely J&P best sellers and mostly not the interesting ones. These plants retail at about $20-25 and do not appear to be particularly well grown. The only other local option is to place an order from the J&P or Weeks wholesale catalog through a nearby hardware shop. They receive plants bareroot and pot them up for resale.

So in i wandered to Walmart and there were all these pretty things that i probably wouldn't go to the trouble of ordering but gosh they were only 5 bucks and i had an idea that it might be too good to be true but really they were only 5 dollars....

Seil-know what you mean-suspect lovely HP living with me is not Baronne Prevost.

Jean-thanks for sharing your happy ending

Ceterum-yes-the best wish of all-stinky roses!

Mendocino rose-LOL-i've seen your garden pictures-probably you can coax a dead stick into bloom-but thanks for the encouragement.

Well-here is the sun-i am off to plant a hedge.

OSH just got some J&P bodybags in today--they had New Gens (own roots) of Catalina, April in Paris, & Tuscan Sun. I'm on the lookout for PJP II, they had it last year and I should have gotten it then. The New-Gen body bag of Tuscan Sun I got last year was a real winner--it's still blooming. If you can get them fresh and own-root, they are pretty good.