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| Peace is often difficult to buy later in the season. I saw quite a few potted ones in the Walmart parking lot - $10. |
The normal rose buying season starts in January. The mail carrier gives me those sad eyes as he delivers pounds of catalogs. I tell him, "They support your salary."
These catalogs and websites sell the hot, new items for nearly $30 each, with the warning - Supplies are short! Buy now or else!
By March the fanatics have bought theirs. The California grower (Regan Nursery) does not sell bare-root roses anymore, except for 2018.
Prices go down. If someone has enough contacts - and I do - offers come through for leftover bare-root roses. Springhill offered them for about $6 each, a few days ago. Their package was like Gurney's several years ago. One of each color (no names given), five for $30. A two-fer order for 10 would guarantee two of the same variety in each of the colors.
That sounds like Week's, the main source, which supplied Gurney's the same way, and all of those roses have done well.
Doubtless one could create an entire rose garden for very little with those prices. I actually bought 20 for a total of $100 and surrounded the maple tree - Week's Rose. They are some of my favorites, and they opened my eyes to many names that were older but excellent roses with special qualities.
Potted Roses a Bit Gone to Pot - Great Prices
This is a good time to buy bargain potted roses. Walmart opened up their parking lot for a big display of plants, just in time for wind and rain. They know how to cope with bigger messes than that one. The plants were falling off the stands before they were all set up.
The concept is good. I only go through the gardening department once a week, because our gardens are full of roses. And we have the previous great plants from Almost Eden - our next-door neighbor.
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| We saw Dolly Parton at a Walmart meeting, but I have not grown the rose. The plants I saw in the parking lot were very impressive, with extra large blooms. |
Walmart is selling Dolly Parton and Peace roses, potted - in full bloom, for $10. Like Lowe's, they get plants from one supplier who brings them in and beefs up the supply. Soda pop and commercial bread are stocked by vendors the same way. When the bread man came by the backroom at the Neighborhood Market where I worked, I solemnly announced, "Bread man walking."
These roses and plants are probably leftover from big gardening centers where each potted rose is all trimmed and blooming like crazy - hard to resist.
These leftover roses will do very well when planted, mulched, and pruned. They are also a good gamble, because relatively little is spent on each one.
Some gardening centers will do the same for leftover potted roses. The roses are snapped up fast because the people who frequently shop there are quick to spot a bargain rose.
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| Hot Cocoa cost me $5: the photo does not capture its glow in the garden. One year it was a left-over. The next year it was difficult to find. |
