What zone are you? Depending on whether or not you want to care for it over the winter, that may provide the answer to your question.

thank you joeywyoming and Sheila, I am in Zone 7B, almost cannot wait to buy, but have the impression bare root are stronger.. March is still half year away ...

Heirloom own roots and Antique Rose Emporium have larger potted own roots. Some other great companies roses are sold as bands which are great baby roses, but a year younger. I love own roots myself.

I go for bare root over one gallon roses. My first Austins at this location, plus several New Dawn roses, were ordered as bare roots from David Austin. They were excellent. Bare roots from Palatine and Hortico have done well, too. Most of the roses I have purchased in recent years have been five gallon potted roses from my favorite nursery. You can't beat those, but I am lucky to have that resource. Diane

Thank you Diane, How is New Dawn from DA doing? is the root as big as other DA roses? ( I had strawberry hill and lady of shallot last year, they are Excellent!) I have a fence under a small tree, so there is some shade, not heavy shade. I heard New Dawn can tolerate some shade among climbing roses, and expect it to climb out of the tree shade along the fence where there is more sun.

Sheila: Antique Rose Emporium says their plants are 2-gallon. In your experience are they more mature than The one gallon plants from Heirloom? I am curious to try them.

I have ordered from Regan, Heirloom, and DA before. I was very happy with my DA BR. All grew well and bloomed well the first season. But I only got DA roses from them not the non-DA like Eden or MAC that they also sell.

I ordered 7 from Heirloom this year. Most did well. One climber grew to more than 6 feet with basal shoots coming up, ready to cover a wall in 3 months. A couple were small to begin with and grew just okay. It could be the varieties. I will order from them again when they have sales or for hard to find varieties.

Same with Regan. Some grew really well but a couple just so so. I wonder if varieties play a large role here. My Olivia Rose Austin from Regan is doing well.

This year I plan to order from DA and Palatine since I heard so many good things about them here.

—Stacy

Yes, Stacy, variety does play a roll in growth habit. Some roses are just very vigorous growers no matter what. While others take their time to grow root balls underground first and then take off. Still others just don't grow well at all as own roots. As an example, Dr Huey is used for a root stock because it just WANTS to grow, grow fast and grow BIG. So it pushes what ever variety is grafted to it to grow faster and bigger too.

Usually own root roses are a little slower to develop because they are younger to begin with. But with time and patience they will mature and catch up. Bands are very young, newly rooted cuttings not even a year old. 1 or even some 5 gallons are probably 1 year olds. Most grafted bare roots are 3 years on the root stock and 2 years on the grafted variety. So they are a more mature plant all around.

Many varieties that were originally bred to be sold as grafted roses were NEVER tested as own root varieties. So there is no way of knowing how well they will grow as an own root plant. Some do very well but many are very wimpy growers on their own roots.

Stacy, lately I have ordered mostly Tea (not HT) roses from ARE and they however 2 gallon are not large on arrival. My plants from Heirloom were mostly OGRs and DAs which were larger even though they were 1 gallon. It is the varietal differences.

Like Seil says, some varieties take off faster than others aside from age and size.

Thank you Seil and Sheila. It makes sense so it’s hard to tell if it’s the variety or the nursery. My own root Eden and PIP Eden are not growing much. I was debating whether to try grafted next year but think I will try other varieties instead. From what I heard here they don’t repeat much grafted or not except maybe for very mature plants or in California.

Well I can tell you that my Eden is a very slow grower. It's 4 years old now and only 2 ft. tall!

I have probably an equal number of grafted vs own-root roses, and for me they both do great overall. I probably have an equal number of each that are 15-20 years old. As many have said above, some of it depends on the variety.