ROSE PLANTING INSTRUCTIONS 
Cut No Roots! Leave All Roots On! Cut No Roots! 
Plant your roses as soon as received, providing the ground is not frozen too hard to 
receive them. Hard frozen ground is the only reason for not planting roses. The bushes 
do not mind cold or wet. 
When you open the bundle see that roots are kept moist. Do not expose them to 
drying winds or sun for a moment. Keep roots in a bucket of water during planting 
operations. Should the roses seem to be dried out through shipping delay soak them roots 
and tops in water for 72 hours. They may die if planted when they are dried out. 
Put no manure, trash or fertilizer in hole where bush is planted. It may cause root 
canker or burn the roots. Put only clean soil or subsoil on all sides of roots. This is 
VERY IMPORTANT. Do not ignore it. Never plant new rose bushes in soil from 
which old roses have been removed. Always change soil from a bed of annuals or 
similar source. 
A CONE OF SOIL must be made under the center of each plant, where the roots 
spread downward in-all directions, to avoid an air pocket. Do not put your bushes in 
a flat trench or hole and try to force the center flat against the soil without this support. 
In planting make the hole or trench large and deep enough to accommodate all roots 
when spread out and down at an angle of 30 degrees. Plant the union of rose and 
understock well above soil level. The HIGHER THE UNION the healthier and longer 
lived your rose will be. 
TEN EXTRA MINUTES spent in planting each bush PROPERLY will give you 
enormously greater results in years to come. The big roots on my plants will work 
miracles if allowed to. 
With your bush placed work soil among roots, gradually firming it down until the 
hole is nearly full. Then trample firmly over your now well covered roots until you 
could not possibly pull up the bush with your hands. If you are planting “‘n mud omit 
the tramping. but tamp soil firmly from time to time. 
Now fill the remainder of the hole with water, even though you are planting in mud, 
to carry earth down into air pockets that may be left and would cause roots in such 
pockets to decay instead of growing. Finish with a final layer of loose soil. 
If you have received bushes having more than four or five canes, thin out the surplus 
canes, allowing no more than above number on a newly planted bush. Remove with a 
clean cut at base of the plant, and protect all wounds with tree paint or emulsified 
asphalt. 
HILLING: All canes are to be completely covered with soil after the bush is planted, 
either in winter or spring. This is to prevent the canes drying out from dry cold, heat 
or drying winds before the roots have a chance to take hold. SPRING PLANTING will 
possibly be a total failure unless the bushes are thus hilled, as spring conditions are 
ideal for drying out the canes. 
Even small city lots provide enough garden space in the vast majority of cases to 
permit of soil being taken from a bed of annuals, etc., for temporary use in the rose 
garden. Always discard the top layer of trash by skimming it off with a shovel, and 
HILL YOUR BUSHES WITH THIS CLEAN SOIL. Do not hill with soil contaminated 
by old rose material. 
Uncover your bushes gradually in spring, exposing only a portion of the canes at 
one time, so the new growth can harden gradually. 
The union of the rose and the understock (the knot where the rose starts) is the 
weakest part of the rose and in addition to keeping it above the ground it has to be pro- 
tected from ‘sunscald and frost damage in the winter. The best 1s to use a heavy mulch 
of loose material such as Peat Moss or Buckwheat Hulls but any loose material will do— 
it also keeps the ground cool the way the rose likes it. | 
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