How to Transplant a Rose – An Illustrated Guide
If you grow roses like I do, you know all too well about the pests and other challenges you face in growing these prized flowers. Recently, I dealt with another potential issue for rose gardeners – how to move a rose to a new location in the garden.
In my case, the rose plant in question was one my children had given me as a Father’s Day present. So naturally, I had some trepidation in disturbing this plant by digging it out from its current location out of concern that I might damage or even kill the rose in the process. However, in the last few years, its growing conditions have been far from adequate, resulting in both a decline in its ability to flower and an increased frequency of becoming infected with certain diseases. After doing some research, I used this technique to transplant this rose to a better location. It’s now been several weeks since I dug up the rose and moved it to its new home, but given its current growth in both foliage and new shoots, I can say the transplant was a success.
So here is the technique I used to transplant my rose. I’ve created some illustrations for this technique to make it easier to visualize the process as I go through the steps. Although some recommend transplanting roses in the fall, I transplanted my rose in early spring (end of April-beginning of May) when I was sure the temperature was not going to drop low enough to cause frost warnings and when the buds on the canes began to open and start growing new leaf shoots.
Step 1 – Water, water, water
Roses in general tend to need a fair amount of water for proper growth and development. And so the very first step in transplanting a rose is to make sure it’s been well-watered days before you move the plant. What I did was water the rose plant every day for about 4-5 days before transplanting it, usually in the early to mid-point in the day (as this was early spring, the ground tended to be rather dry). Even if you can’t water your rose until later in the day, it’s still better to make sure you give the rose the chance to adapt to this watering process than simply watering it the day before. This daily watering regimen will help minimize the expected shock once you dig it up out of the ground. The day before you transplant the rose, make sure you water the rose plant well, giving it enough water that it takes about a minute for it to drain. Also, be sure to water directly into the ground and not on the rose itself to make sure your plant doesn’t become susceptible to fungus or disease later on (a good habit in general when it comes to watering roses).
Step 2 – Prepare the new location
This is a pretty intuitive step, but it’s also a key one for the success of the transplant process. When digging your hole, it’s important that you make the hole as wide and deep as possible. In my case, I dug a hole about 2-3 feet deep and 2 feet wide – this is represented in the image above as the highlighted area in the ground. Now here’s the important point – as much as you might feel compelled to include a soil amendment like composted manure, don’t. The problem with adding composted manure is that it still has more nitrogen than potassium, which will stimulate your rose to grow leaves faster than it grows back its feeder roots. Although you’ll get a quick bloom of foliage, without the replacement of its root system first, these shoots will soon wither and die off.
Instead, what I did was mix two parts of the existing soil with one part black earth. I left this mixed pile next to the excavated hole so I could quickly add it back once I placed the rose plant in the hole. However, if you do this right, most of this mixture won’t be needed since the rose will come with the soil it’s been growing in at which point you can use this soil mixture to fill up the hole left by the rose at its original growing site.
Step 3 – Pick a cloudy day
As with most plantings, the transplanting of your rose should be done in overcast skies. During this process, the rose can lose a lot of its water content and having the sun drying it out more will only cause additional stress to the plant. When I moved my rose, the day was mostly cloudy. However by late afternoon, the sun broke through the cloud cover at which point I built a make-shift wall to keep the rose in the shade. After a 24 hour period, it should be fine having the rose exposed to the sun.
Step 4 – Moving day
With the rose plant having received regular daily waterings and with overcast skies above, you’re now ready to move your rose. Start by taking a sharp-edged spade shovel and dig straight down about 2 feet and in a 3-4 feet circumference around the plant. This will ensure you preserve as much of the root system of the rose plant. In this illustration above, the highlighted area in the soil gives you a good idea of the area I dug around the rose. Of course, how much you can dig around the rose is dependent on how much space you have, so if you have limited space around the rose, try at least to dig as deep as possible to preserve as much of the root system.
After you’ve dug around the rose plant, slowly move the spade underneath the rose to sever the rose from the roots found below. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when the plant and soil mass starts to move freely as you maneuver your shovel. Once you’re sure the rose is now detached from the ground, use either your shovel or your hands to gently pick the rose and its surrounding mass of soil up out of the ground. As quickly as you can (again, this is dependent on how close the transplant hole is from the rose’s original location), bring the rose to the new site for planting.
Step 5 – Press down and water
When you bring your rose and soil mass to its new location, chances are the hole you’ve prepared won’t be a perfect fit. To know what adjustments need to be made to the new hole, slowly place the rose plant into the hole and see if the bud union will remain above the soil surface (I’m one of those rose gardeners who believes it’s ideal to plant roses with the bud union above the soil surface since I cover the rose in composted manure in the fall to protect it. From my own experience, this does encourage the growth of more new canes in the spring). Once you’ve tested out the rose in its new location, use the soil mixture you made in Step 2 to adjust the hole accordingly so the rose sits just right. Bear in mind that when you do put the rose in the hole, you will need to press down on it as the process of digging it up and moving it has invariably loosened the soil mass creating air pockets.
With the hole now properly adjusted, slowly place the rose and soil mass into the hole and add a small amount of the soil mix. Press down slowly but firmly around the rose and then water the plant slightly. Add more of the soil mixture around the rose until the ground surrounding the plant is level. Water the plant well, leaving enough water that it takes a minute or so to properly drain. Clean up the area around the rose, removing any unwanted soil and other debris.
Step 6 – Water and water, but hold off on the plant food
For the next two weeks, you need to water the rose daily with an adequate amount of water, but do not give the rose any plant food or other nutrients. Again, most of these contain a fair amount of nitrogen, which is meant to encourage rapid foliage growth. What we need here is for the rose to regrow much of its root system that was damaged or lost through the transplant process. Also, you should expect to see the rose go into a bit of shock for a couple of days, so if you see some of the new leaf shoots are wilting, that’s fine. The important measure to do here is to keep watering the plant every day to make sure the ground is kept sufficiently moist.
By the two week mark, you should be able to see a marked improvement in the look of your rose plant with the growth of new shoots and foliage throughout. At this point, you can start putting your rose on a weekly feeding regimen to help it gain strength well before the hot, humid days of summer arrive.
Even if you read this after the spring season has passed, hopefully this guide will give you the information you need to help plan how to transplant your roses next season. Following these easy and straight-forward steps, you should have no problems moving your roses while ensuring you’ll still be able to enjoy their bountiful blooms over the summer period.
UPDATE:
For those who are interested in knowing how my transplanted rose is doing after performing this technique, here’s a picture I took at the end of June this year, about two months after the transplant move. It’s a Grandiflora rose called “Cherry Parfait” and as you can see, it’s doing very well, offering some spectacular blooms this summer season -
I’m sure it helps to see that there is a happy ending to using this technique. Good luck with transplanting your rose and if you have any questions about this technique, feel free to leave a comment below with your query.
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