They were sold to Greenheart several years ago, and from my understanding, Greenheart longer sells directly to the public.

That's correct. Greenheart is basically just a wholesaler of minis at this point. You might try Burlington Nursery. They sell quite a few minis from Nor'East and Ralph Moore.

Why the heck did Nor-east sell out?! They were charging a mint for their roses, and last year I bought my usual bunch,no mention of going out of business. Now I am finding out that mini roses are becoming rare to find??? Whats the deal? Why are the companies selling out? I usually get new fresh roses every year from them. Now I cant find a Scentsational or any of its sisters to save my life! Let alone any new fragrant ones. why are these companies going out of business. I KNOW i bought from Nor-East last spring....now they are gone? What is the big secret in teh mini rose world?

Many of the minis you see in big box stores and grocery stores come from Poulsen and Kordes. They produce millions of mini roses every year using automated, assembly line methods. The chains that buy them, and the people that buy them from the chains, don't care about the names of the roses or whether they produce a better bloom than the ones the store sold two years ago. They just want a miniature rose as a gift or to look pretty in their house for a week or two. The specialty mini nurseries in the U.S. just can't compete with that while producing varieties rose fanciers like us want to grow. We don't produce enough volume to keep them going.

Look at the other thread here about Kordana rose bought at Walmart. The poster wants to know how big it will get. Kordana is the series name for Kordes throw away minis. There are probably two dozen, if not more, varieties sold under that series. They likely have six or more of each color to be sold interchangeably so when a store orders yellows, they will have some yellow ones available. That means you can likely buy many different ones as the same rose. Ralph Moore commented to me once, years ago, how he hated what Meilland had done to mini roses. When you ordered Rise'n Shine from Sequoia, you got Rise'n Shine. When you ordered yellow minis from Meilland, you could have gotten a dozen different roses all under one name. He considered that making them disposable. That, they have.

There are still a few mini vendors around, but their stock may be limited at thie time of year. Try Rosemania.com, John's Miniature Roses, Two Sisters Roses, Roses Unlimited, Burlington Roses.

Rose growing is an expensive business. With the price of oil/gas rising, and shipping proces soaring, people didn't order enough roses for the companies to meet their margins, and the smaller vendors couldn't afford to stay in business. And as Kim said, Greenheart was set up to handle wholesale traffic, not retail. In addition, some of the vendors passed away, and their families didn't want to keep up the business.

John Saville sold Nor'East to Greenheart because he wanted to retire and no one else in his family wanted to take over the business. He stayed on in a consulting capacity with them for a few years, but then retired and they went back to all wholesale. It's a common story.

Nor'East was sold to Greenheart for the reasons Phil stated. For a while, they continued the business model of previous years which included direct retail sales. A severe decline in interest in roses generally, and a decline in miniatures specifically, (they quickly fell out of fashion after a meteoric rise in popularity a decade ago) made retail sales non-viable for Greenheart. So, they stopped doing direct-to-public sales. They still sell wholesale to numerous other suppliers, such as Burlington Roses and others. (The Burlington Web site only offers contact info at this time, so email to obtain an availability list. www.roguevalleyroses.com also has a selection of minis) Getting the same rich selection of miniatures is no longer possible if one stop shopping is your goal; you will likely have to buy from two or three sources to get all the roses you want. There really isn't a nursery left that deals only in miniatures now, or if they do, their selection is limited compared to what was possible five years ago. Welcome to the rose industry in 2011.

Here is a link that might be useful: Burlington Roses

Distribution is pretty pathetic with Nor'East these days -- Greenheart deals with a relative few garden centers, and those in Florida, at least, are concentrated in a small geographic area (according to the list on their website). And the sad thing is, most of the late Frank Benardella's later introductions are being introduced through them.

I can not AFFORD to make it profitable on my end. I took on 215 Ralph Moore minis when Nor'East closed. Along with 10 other "odds and ends" minis. I have collected more since that point.

I thought I'd have it all figured out. I have all the water I need. (Reclaimed Water from the City of St.Pete ... it works but it is not ideal) A slew of containers / liners ...you name it.

Space is a premium in my St. Pete garden. Many of my roses are just too cramped. I've taken over my neighbors yards. I have started to use 10 acres in PA. But,I usually only get up to see my family around the Holidays or special events.

Thankfully, my family can take care of them. But, they all have "real jobs" also. I barely get time to weed my garden, let alone time to really enjoy it. Spring is great here. Summer, the other 9 months,is HELL.

I would need a helper to get a business off the ground. I can afford my bills, but to hire someone at this point just is not in the cards.

The chain stores make it impossible for me to really turn a profit. I do not want to charge 20$ for a mini. Many people are casual rose growers. They buy a mini rose, let it bloom, and toss it. Some might plant it in the ground. But, it is hit or miss for minis in Florida's sand /soil. So, minis have a bad reputation here. It is endless work.

Grafting minis is good for my personal garden ...But, I'm not good enough to be the next Burling. Ebay charges too much to be an outlet for me. I had a gentleman selling my minis for a while last year. We had good traffic. Not a slew of buyers. He is a "snowbird" also.

It only takes one or two cards and you really start to feel the deck is not stacked in your favor. I tell anyone who is interested in minis to go to Burlington Roses. As always sucks to live in Florida, because for the most part, You can not get roses from CA.

From what I read, minis were a hit in the 70's. Not so much now-days. I could be wrong. I have not tried to raise liners, so I really do not know if that would be the only way to go for me. It is just frustrating on my end to have roses that are considered rare, and no way to really capitalize on it. With all the bigger names going under it doesn't help me feel that "Hey,I could make a couple bucks on this."

I'll stick with stocks and day trading. At least I can look out my window and see my roses blackspot and all.

Have you tried John's Miniature Roses or Heirloom (they are related) on the west coast? I've ordered minis from both and was able to get what I wanted. They have a good selection (maybe not now). I used to order from Nor East and was very upset when they stopped selling. They had a notice on their website before they shut down. Maybe you missed it.

John's is actually getting some wholesale stock from Nor'east now, so it's worth calling them if what you want isn't listed on the website.

I'd forgotten about Two Sisters. I ordered 2 from the Scentimental line from them last year and was very pleased with the plants. There are places out there that sell minis, you just have to look harder now. I could never find any locally that ever had any scent until I went online........

It's getting to the point if you want a certain rose you need to find someone who grows it and get a cutting. I wanted Charismatic. No one has it, so I got a cutting at a show and it's rooted.

I just found this thread and I am so disappointed! I moved from Balto. to DE 4 years ago. I had many Nor'East mini's in the Balto garden and finally got to the point where I am ready to order more to put in my new DE garden. Nor'East will be sorely missed!

There is one source that nobody has mentioned.

forloveofroses.com Richard carries all the Whit Wells roses. He has Minis and Minifloras. They are nice plants.

I got a bunch of roses from Forloveofroses several yrs ago when he first opened. All the roses he sent were in great shape with good root systems. I'll probably make another small order later this summer. There's a few I REALLY need to add to my collection.

dan_keil_cr Keil(Illinois z5) this was a very old thread from 2011 that was resurrected, which is why For Love of Roses hadn't been mentioned.

It wasn't even going then!! At least I updated it!!

Trying to find the "Si" miniature rose is like pulling teeth. I, too, had gotten a lot of minis from Nor' East when I lived in Pennsylvania over a decade ago. I absolutely loved them. After I moved out here to Phoenix and realized they were no longer in business, I bought some minis from Greenheart when they sold retail. I have to say their roses did not do very well for me; so I haven't had any minis since. But now I want to try again and I'm looking for the "Si" micromini. Specifically for that (or any micro mini that might approach its tiny size). But I'm having a lot of difficulty finding one, and I don't want to pay an arm and a leg to try one or at most two miniature roses at this time. I don't know if it's the difference in climate or what, but I was more successful at keeping miniatures in PA, despite the fact that they were indoor plants.

Burlington Roses was the last nursery I know of offering some of the tiniest of the tiny. I'm not really surprised they are difficult in Phoenix. With the gauge of their wood, they should "cook" completely through very quickly.

I would agree with you except that as I mentioned, they were indoor plants, and I'm sure I had them shipped during the winter/early spring so shipping wouldn't have "cooked" them. Unless I am misunderstanding your comment? I do know the climate here is extremely dry, much different than in PA, and my roses constantly got powdery mildew in the house here in Phoenix; yet in PA I rarely if ever had that problem. Since then I've been monitoring the humidity inside and it's been pretty constant at between 20 - 25% (of course outside it gets as low as 1%). I'm guessing Burlington Roses is no longer in business? A quick search brought up cached webpages but no current website. I do remember a favorite micro mini that I loved so much, I named my cat after it in PA - it was called "Spice Drop". It was a pretty small pink micro mini and did extremely well in PA, but when I got the same variety here, it got powdery mildew to the extent I couldn't save it. I got pretty discouraged about raising roses in general that I just stopped even looking at them. Although I see a lot of "tough" roses being raised outdoors here, obviously none are minis. I'm solely looking for a tiny indoor pot rose to try my hand at again. Perhaps in October/November when it starts to get below 100 reliably I will restart my search efforts.

Burlington Roses is still very much a thriving business. But you have to call or email her, she doesn't do web business. tel:1-559-747-3624

I see that Heirloom roses has a nice selection of minis ad well

Mountain Valley Growers has some nice micro's I got Baby Austin and Cinderella from them. They are organic growers and the plants are only $5.99 and they ship super fast! The first time I ordered from them they were here the next day! I also got a very pretty mini called Lavender Lace from them, I liked it so well I ordered another from them.

Mountain Valley Growers does have a few nice minis, but their website has functional issues and they don't have reliable phone services, so ...

Mountain Valley shipped beautiful plants to me which have taken off and grown quite well. Their prices are also quite good. I've only dealt with them once but it was perfect in every detail. I'd buy from them again.

I'm seeing Ralph Moore mentioned here -- if anyone knows where I can find his rose, "Westmont" please message me! I would love to get one (or more) of those.

Kim's breakdown of the business, above, is why I try very hard to buy only from nurseries -- no big box, no backyard sellers.