Yeah, prairiemoon, I bet that New Dawn would've survived and then thrived; fact is, I never can get an intact rootball it seems when I move a plant. I sort of end up bare-rooting them, digging out as much root as I can but always end up having to cut roots, too.

But I am not so smart, lol! I learned the hard way- do NOT try to set up an DYI irrigation system in the summer!!! Do it WAY before its going to be really needed !!!

The biggest mistake I made was to plant some big companion plants too close to the roses. Example, cone flowers and Mystic Spires Blue salvia completely blocked Lavender Crush and Firefighter and they struggled the whole season. Similarly, a few spider flower plants pushed the Perfume Factory and most of the time it is not visible.

I found pincushion flowers good companion to roses, soft pleasant color, small size. Next year I will try more rose companions

Thanks Moses for initiating another great subject , this is my field of expertise. The internet is not able to contain my vast experience, but I can offer a nugget ;

By now you all know I have a deeply entrenched habit of digging, having this year alone given 4 more underground pipes a taste of my shovel . I made another crucial mistake confiding in a neighbor that lives here at the apartment complex She was horrified, and acted like I had killed someone. The cat's out of the bag and has run abroad. I'm finally ready to amend my ways and construct a large pot garden.

Water more is number one for me.

O, dear, yes! Water more! I also have a LOT to learn about companion s for roses...

Berry, could you try a raised bed instead of a bunch of pots? Where would you put the pots? Diane

To fertilze more often...I only fertilized in the Spring this past season...

Yup , one knock out punch of Alaska Fish Fertilizer to the nose was enough for me , the bottle went back in the tool shed to age for another year.

Diane - I don't know , I was thinking your house ?

Don't feed alfalfa in the middle of the season if you don't want a huge tall salad and no blooms all summer.

Please don't get tired of me going on and on about my relentless battle with Rose Midge Fly, which pressure from them is intense in my garden, so here goes with this year's dilemma.

Normally, the RMF does not break dormancy (the maggots over winter just a little bit below the soil surface, evidently freezing solid, but surviving), until AFTER the first flush of bloom in Spring. This year, 2023, they emerged early, attacking the growing tips of the first flush with wanton abandon. I was not prepared for such an event.

Spraying the severely stunted and grossly disfigured tips was useless. I pruned the growth back down to a 5 leaflet where the stem was also minimally pencil thick. This left me with pitifully short shoots everywhere. Remember, I grow mostly hybrid teas which particularly need thick remaining growth after dead heading. No or very little of this remaining, necessary growth was left.

As the season progressed, new growth emerged on a weird schedule, defeating my every two week spraying schedule at every turn. New growth showed midge damage that was evidently made just a day or so before each spray, making most of my spraying futile...and all the way into summer's end. By fall, I was defeated. A sea of sickly, green rose bushes was the result of all my fertilizing, spraying, and watering.

Throw in the towel and dig up all the roses and makeover the 8'x18' rose bed into a combination hydrangea and spirea bed is mighty tempting now, especially since my age is working against my fighting spirit? But I do have a plan.

Assume nothing. Start spraying when new growth in spring is 2" long, no later. First flush RMF damage free is the goal post moved back. Also, fumigating the soil with a top dressing of a turf grub control granule, something I resisted doing in the past, will be trialed in 2024. Ortho makes one that's supposedly odorless, so will see. Rose Midge Fly, you have not yet defeated me!

Moses

I have been battling a group of grasshoppers for over two years now. They will chew the middle of a stem only and do some very destructive pruning on a rose. They killed several rose bushes by chewing them down to bare stems and exhausting the roses after multiple defoliation cycles. I have tried diatomaceous earth, vinegar sprays, neem oil with soapy water, blasting them off with water, killing them with a slipper, and resorted to Sevin. However, this summer I finally realized that Raid Ant and Roach spray works best for me. I had 10 grasshoppers falling out of my rose bushes the first time I used it. While I was worried about the toxicity on leaves and beneficial insects, it seems to have been fine on the roses so far and I make sure to target the sprays at the grasshoppers only.

Funny all of us are battling super bugs to save our roses ! Mine are spider mites and Chilli thrips . I have to spray biweekly all year long .

I learned that it is much better to take cuttings of an established rose than to transplant it. Then, make sure the cutting grows roots before digging out the old rose. Fortunately, it all turned out fine.

noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque) Great tip !! I do the same with my decade old Austin roses .. take cuttings first before moving it. I killed years-old Bolero when I moved it one year by putting too much amendments in the planting hole. I no longer mix stuff into the planting hole like Roses Unlimited recommended, I simply top-dress.

In my zone 5a with heavy rain and heavy & poor drainage clay, I need to dig BIG hole, like 3 feet wide by at least 2.5 feet deep, plus pry off rocks at the bottom to cope with spring flood. I'm 62 so I dig big holes in advance before I get too old to spend hours in the garden digging.

I could have saved at least $1,000 of roses dying through my zone 5a winter with freezing rain & spring flood if I had bought below tool for the past decade. It's a 4.5 feet long trenching shovel to dig out rocks at bottom of a hole.

Note the sharp end and the bent shape to lift rocks out of the hole. If a 5-gallon bucket of water dumped into the hole doesn't drain fast, then a rose won't survive my winter, or else blackspot or mildew badly.

Below $35 TRENCHING SHOVEL is a must for heavy clay with rocks at bottom. The bottom rock & cement-clay is so hard, that I can't dig unless I pour a bucket of water to soften it, then pry out 2 wheel-barrels of "cement-clay" and rocks to dump elsewhere.

I also have a long spade, but it doesn't pry off big rocks at the bottom of a 3 feet hole as well as the LONG trenching shovel. See below long spade, useful for smashing rocks at the bottom of a planting hole, but NOT for fishing them out. In the past 2 decades, I broke 3 shovels from the rocks below my black-gumbo clay, but a fiberglass long-spade still lasts after 30 years.