About six weeks ago, a friend of mine offered to give me some mature roses he didn’t want. “But it’s the middle of August,” I said. Not exactly, in other words, the best time for a transplant. But it was this or straight to the compost heap. As it happens, six weeks on, five of the seven are doing fine—most recently, the oldest-looking one decided it might as well live.
This is, if I count correctly, the third time someone has made such an offer to me, to get rid of mature roses. There are always various reasons, but they generally include, “they take so much work.” This puzzles me. Any plant that can get uprooted and dumped into the dusty Davis mid-August clay and six weeks later have a full complement of branches and flowers is a pretty hardy thing.
Which has always, both in our old house and here, been the case. Despite appearances, roses are tough and take care of themselves pretty well.
The Edge of the American West 
15 comments
September 28, 2008 at 11:29 am
Rich Puchalsky
“They take so much work” — yeah, right. They take a lot of work if you want them looking just so, I guess. We routinely transplant all sorts of free plants that other people don’t want into our yard, and if they grow, that’s great, if they don’t, oh well. We also don’t bother to turn the compost heap meticulously like you’re supposed to, so every year some kind of squash grow out of it, which we eat.
Actually, mostly what we plant are edible berries all around the border of our yard to make a hedge. Raspberries and blackberries and so on are great all around; the kids love picking and eating them, and they will slowly spread and get rid of the lawn. Humorously, I was out picking them one day and two neighbors independently walked by and asked if they were mine — an odd question, since we were standing maybe ten feet away from the front door of my suburban house — and I said yes, but they were welcome to eat the ones on the outside of the hedge. They said that groups of people already had been, thinking they were wild. I didn’t mind, but it’s a funny rationalization — if you’re walking by and see ripe berries growing in a yard but within reach, they must be “wild”.
September 28, 2008 at 1:03 pm
sarcozona
I agree with Rich – it can take quite a bit of work to have absolutely spectacular looking roses. If you plant them in the wrong place they tend to be more susceptible to fungal infections and they do like some pruning, which scares lots of people.
September 28, 2008 at 2:28 pm
KRK
I grew up watching my mom and older sister knock themselves out babying roses and concluded that roses were not the plant for me. When I bought my house a few years ago it had a couple of rose bushes in place and I knew the previous owners/renters hadn’t done anything for them, so I just let them take care of themselves. They tolerate my neglect, soggy winters, and parched summers and still produce beautiful, steady blooms. Sure, the foliage looks terrible and occasionally a bug is eaten by aphids, but this bothers me not at all. And apparently doesn’t bother the rose either.
September 28, 2008 at 2:28 pm
KRK
bug s/b bud
September 28, 2008 at 5:37 pm
bitchphd
Yes, one of the things I like best about roses is that they’re so freaking easy. Prune the hell out of ’em once a year, and there you go.
People who baby roses do so because they enjoy it. And I mean, it *is* enjoyable; pruning is the funnest part of gardening. Plus they smell nice.
September 28, 2008 at 6:36 pm
ari
Prunes smell nice? Different strokes.
September 28, 2008 at 6:49 pm
bitchphd
Pruning is a verb, Ari.
September 28, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Vance
The home of this aesthetic of shabby-lush gardening (loving the flowers even when not of centerfold regularity) in my experience is Berkeley. Take a walk through there (say up Benvenue from Alcatraz to the campus, or along McGee from University to Hopkins) and you’ll see garden after garden chaotically rich.
September 28, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Gene O'Grady
Many years ago my mother and I went to an open house at a Savings and Loan (even before they were deregulated) and brought back the gift they were giving out, a rose bush which looked like a couple of dead but thorny sticks. Thinking little of it she stuck in the ground next to the side of her house, essentially did nothing for it, and was rewarded with thirty years of very lovely roses. On the other hand, whenever I’ve made real effort at gardening,….
September 28, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Brad
pruning is the funnest part of gardening.
Gardening and fun are two words that, in my mind, do not go together. Maybe I should sell the house….
September 28, 2008 at 9:13 pm
bitchphd
Oh, there’s fun in gardening. Occasionally pruning, cutting flowers to take into the house, picking fruit and veggies, sitting in the garden smoking,* and planning the garden are all fun.
Weeding and trimming and propping and fighting slugs and mulching and amending the soil and deadheading and fertilizing and mowing and raking and anything that gets your hands dirty, calloused, or raises a sweat, basically, are not fun.
*No, I have not begun smoking again, Ari. But sitting in a garden smoking *is* fun.
September 28, 2008 at 9:52 pm
ben
Sitting in a gard smoking is not, however, gardening.
September 28, 2008 at 10:19 pm
bitchphd
Sez you.
September 29, 2008 at 12:28 am
Brad
You know, one multiple occasions I have offered, freely, my garden to folks. They can do whatever they want, I don’t mind. And yet, almost always the answer is no. The only exception is my mom, and I not sure she really counts.
October 1, 2008 at 12:36 pm
'stina
I went to a seminar on growing Earthkind Roses about a year ago at Texas A&M, and I learned a lot. Their recommendations were for growing roses in Texas, but I think the principles are pretty universal:
http://earthkindroses.tamu.edu/EKRoseTips.html