Comments regarding Roses Unlimited

I purchased from RU last year for the first time ('08) , 9 fragrant cloud bushes. I also purchased from the other own root vendors on GW: ARE, Heirloom and Chamblees. Although the other vendors had nice plants, nothing was as good as RU.

Winter 08 I decided to bury my roses to see how much I could keep alive, as opposed to past years cones/mulching. My fragrant clouds from RU have 3/4 to 1" canes of last seasons growth that made it through the winter buried. I have never had any HT rose in zone 5 make it through winter this robustly. Although buried, the credit has to go to the quality of the plants, as the other buried fragrant cloud bands from heirloom and grafted fragrant clouds from JP are alive but barely and all other variables are the same (location, soil, winter wet, etc.).

I was initially hesitant to order as RU availability checking is by email, and payment is in the form of a mailed check. However, they are now my preferred vendor. Their website is a little hokey, but their roses are the best, and they do respond pretty quickly to emailed availability questions. I strongly recommend them.

I just received a wonderful shipment from Roses Unlimited - their own Mystic Beauty, a blooming Lyda Rose, and a large and budded - and IMPOSSIBLE to find - Versigny Generosa rose.

They arrived in 90 degree Texas heat in pristine condition and didn't even need a drink. They were so securely packaged that it took me 20 minutes to get them safely out of the box, but I'm not complaining! I was worried about these roses with our recent heat wave, but they arrived looking like they were just packaged moments ago instead of three or more days ago.

If they would accept debit cards or paypal, the shopping experience would be ideal. Nevertheless, this is an excellent source of lovely roses and I'll definitely be a frequent customer.

Positives
-Sell all plants own root in 1 gallon containers.
-Excellent selection of Hybrid Teas and Floribundas
-Have alot of classic Hybrid teas and older AARS
-Stock roses from Rose Barni and Viru Vinghaven that are very hard to find

Negatives
-Only accept checks. No paypal or credit cards.
-Not all roses have photos on website. So browsing becomes difficult
-Website is typically harder to use than most. As an aside the background music on the website is terrible.
-Shipping costs higher than some due to the 1 gallon pots.
-Limited #s or alot of roses. Have to order preorder well in advance for hard to find roses.

Overall rating
Roses Unlimited has provided me with over 30 roses that have all done extremely well in my garden. I have ordered from dozens of ownroot suppliers from nurserys and ebay and their roses are well above average. They are my go to supplier of own roots. Just order early or you will be waiting till next year. Excellent quality for your money

I have always picked up my roses at nursery So I have no expierence with their packaging. If you visit your nursery wear good shoes and be careful as its a working nursery and not a sales center. The floors are muddy and aisles are hard to get through

Have seen no evidence of RMV on their roses. In touring their green house I did not see any virused plants but I do not consider myself an expert on that subject.

I emailed Pat in mid March about placing an order of roses. She was very knowledgeable and helpful and answered the many emails I sent. I had a negative experience ordering roses online from a different vendor and she was quick to reassure me that I wouldn't receive 'baby' roses.
They arrived today and were extremely well packaged. It took my husband 20 minutes to unwrap all of them. They are in excellent shape and several of them have buds. I'm very happy with my experience with RU and would highly recommend Pat and her staff.

Very positive experience with this lovely lady! She provides a GREAT selection of healthy, self-rooted plants of very good size. Her roses are grown potted rather than being shipped bare-rooted, which results in a much faster start for the plant here in the south. The only drawback to ordering from RU is that they are not set up to take credit card payments which can make the ordering process a bit cumbersome... but it's worth it to receive her wonderful plants. I will definitely order from Roses Unlimited again in the future. Ev =)

My order arrived in perfect condition - 3 large, healthy roses with one in bloom. The packing is so secure that it does take a little time to remove the plants from the box, but the extra care taken allows the roses to arrive looking fresh and undamaged. The plants were shipped on the specified date. Communication was excellent too.
I have been ordering from Roses Unlimited for over 10 years and have never been disappointed with their roses. Even though these are own-root roses, they are large and ready to plant in the ground. This is definitely one of the best sources for own-root roses. I continue to be a completely satisfied customer.

I ordered 6 roses recently. All arrived very well packed and healthy. I was amazed at how large they were. 2 of the roses already had buds and it has been one month now and all have doubled in size in the garden. I will surely order from them again. A+ company.

got my 2 roses today may 1, they were very secure in the box . had fun getting them out!. plants were good size. marina had 3 flowers on it my wife was very
happy to see that!. singin in the rain has a bud, can't wait to see it flower!.
i will order from them again in the future.

I have ordered twice from Roses Unlimited and both times I have received all large,beautiful, healthy plants. Most were blooming or in bud. I have been very pleased and am looking forward to ordering again.
clanross
south Mississippi

I ordered 'Westerland' this past year, and when the package arrived on April 18 I was delighted to see an extremely healthy plant already budding! The rose established well in its first year with vigorous growth--I will definitely order from Roses Unlimited again in the future.

Although I think it's unwise to order roses (or ANY plants) in the thick of summer heat, I succumbed to RU's recent buy-two-get-one-free offer. (What could I do? Two roses on my wish list were on their select list!!!)
The size, health and condition of the 3 roses I ordered are impressive. The order arrived within a week, so the roses were not at all stressed.
The packing was excellent. Large staples were used to hold the inner package to the outer box, thereby eliminating shifting and loss of soil during transit.
I am very please with this company's plants and service, and can't wait to order more roses from them next spring.

I ordered 4 roses from Roses Unlimited last year. New to roses, I asked a lot of questions through e-mail and received very helpful responses from Pat. It was thrilling to open the box and find 2 of the roses in bloom. Better yet, they've made it through the zone 5 winter, look very healthy and are putting on lovely display this year.

How can one give a SUPER POSITIVE rating?
I ordered roses from several own-root nurseries this year. My RU order was the last to arrive and indeed, the best was saved for last!
Receiving 2 year old own-root plants for the same price as most of the others charge for very, very young stock is a treat. I was bowled over not only by the size of the plants but by the health of the specimens I received. I can plant these beauties with confidence.

The customer service is wonderful as well. One of my first choice roses was not available and it turns out one of my second choice was not either. I had asked that in case of such an event I'd be open to a fragrant orange, peachy, or apricot shrub rose (I know that's a wide open request). The substitute turned out to be a Fragrant Apricot, partially in bloom, so scented it nearly knocked me out when I opened the box. I am thrilled!

Next year it will be all Roses Unlimited for me! Unless of course I go back and order more now!

I ordered and received 4 beautiful healthy roses. Communication was excellent as was the packaging. I will order from them again!

the roses came so well packed, healthy, huge and some with blooms.... really beautiful... definitly will order more roses.... top customer service... I am so pleased with my new roses!!!

I've ordered from Roses Unlimited before, but forgot just how beautiful their roses arrive after shipping from SC to NY. 3 out of the 5 had blooms on the bushes and 1 had buds. they were all large and very healthy. Excellent roses and I've very pleased.

This is my first order with Roses Unlimited. Based on excellent feedback from others, I ordered 18 roses. They arrived when expected, healthy, huge plants, even better than I expected. Shortly before they shipped, I changed my mind on one of the varieties. They confirmed my substitution by e-mail, and the substituted rose was just as nice as the rest. I will definitely order again and recommend them to others.

I just got my rose order in today. I got 4. They were huge! Charles de Mills canes were 27" long and healthy. The others were 22" and 18" and two of the plants had buds. One Charisma had a perfect bloom and 4 more buds on their way. Very impressed with my order!

At the end of last season (summer 2006) I wanted to buy a particular color climbing rose. The one on their site I liked was out of stock but I was told that it would be available next year and I could be put on a waiting list to be notified when it was available. I was notified at the end of December and sent in my check. I just received the rose bush yesterday. It had 1 bloom on it and was a good size in excellent condition. The folliage on it was stunning.

I was impressed with their packaging. They had had stapled a box around the bottom of the plant to a larger box so that the rose couldn't move during shipping. All of the dirt was in the pot and hadn't spilled.

I just received one Frederic Mistral rose, in Los Angeles (far from South Carolina). It is very large, beautiful and has TWO buds already. Hard to believe it is an own root rose!

Dear RU

I began to order roses from you when I started growing roses in Louisiana, a dicey affair . Back then you had pictures for around 10% of your roses.

Since then I have bought a few roses from other sellers. I've always been disappointed when I compare these roses to yours.

Your roses have come on time. There has never been a spot of disease. The plants are sturdy; most have buds.

The folks who answer the phones are unfailingly courteous and helpful.

Your prices are well in line with other sellers.

What more could any one ask?????????????????


Marie Sheley

I ordered several own-root hybrid tea roses from Roses Unlimited, corresponding directly with Pat. She was a pleasure to deal with as she was informed, pleasant mannered, and honest about her plants. I ordered with confidence and it was repaid tenfold when I received my order. The roses were huge for bareroots and were in superb condition as they had been grown well and packaged correctly. When they ran a sale later in the year I ordered two more roses--New Years orange hybrid teas--and again I received top notch service and quality plants. I recommend Roses Unlimited to anyone interested in own-root roses. You will definitely get your money's worth and have an enjoyable experience.

My husband and I purchased our very first own root roses last summer from Roses Unlimited. I was a little nervous, reading that own-root roses tended to be small and might not make it through our rough zone 5a winters. I barraged Pat Henry (owner) with several emails and phone calls about different varieties and asked a lot of advice. She answered each email promptly and in great detail.
We finally purchased Flutterbye, Rouge Royale, Star of the Nile and Distant Drums. When the roses came, I was astonished at the size (HUGE) and at the fact that they were already leafed out and some blooming! They have all done EXTREMELY well and are getting bigger their second year. I was especially happy with RRoyale, as ours has had incredible blooms. I have heard that RR can be kind of tough to grow well. Anyway, I felt the need to brag about Roses Unlimited and plan to order there next season.

I also took advantage of the sale they were having and had a less then perfect experience.
I called in ready to order what I wanted (cl. cecile brunner & carefree sunshine) and they were sold out of both. I was disappointed but luckily the person I got on the phone was very helpful and didn't mind that I wasn't familiar with everything on the sale list, I asked lots of questions and took up lots of her time. She was very pleasant and assisted me in making my purchase and although she made lots of suggestions I finally settled on cl. clotilde soupert and the cecile brunner shrub since I had at least heard of both of those and since I couldn't seem to get my hands on the climber I figured I'd at least get the shrub. I asked her what the difference between the climber and the shrub was and she told me there was no difference. So I proceeded with the order expecting a pink bush and of course cl clotilde.

Well I recieved my order a few days ago and they were in excellent condition. I was thrilled with my order. One cane on clotilde is already about 5 feet tall and it came that way. I planted them both immediately and then noticed the tag on cecile. It is a cecile brunner *white*.

I was a little torn about wether I was annoyed or not. I did not want a white rose bush for this particular spot and I was/am pretty disappointed but on the other hand both roses are in excellent condition, and up until now the experience overall had been great, especially the one on one customer service. So I looked up what I had and found a very little bit of info on it, truth was I didn 't even know there was a white cecile brunner and then looked on their sale page to make sure it didn't specify which cecile it was. I wanted to make sure it wasn't my error before I complained and of course there was no mention of it being the white cecile brunner or the pink for that matter but when the nice lady I spoke to on the phone told me it was just like the climber, well then I had no reason to question what I thought I knew.

Anyway, I wrote a polite e-mail, telling them how pleased I was with everything, the service, the condition of the roses but that I was disappointed I didn't get what I wanted.
Her response to me was to offer that I could purchase another rose and she'd throw the correct cecile in for free (she acknowldeges they weren't specified on the sale page and was suprised because she had to go back herself to doublecheck. All 3, if you include the climber, were included in the sale but they were only listed twice as the cl or the shrub.) although i'd still have to pay for shipping. WHAT??! Makes no sense to me! She will allow me to make her more money by buying another rose from her and tossing in the cecile I should've got to begin with free, Big deal. Its in fact exactly the same deal as the sale she had going on. Sounds like she'd lose nothing on it since apparently she still has some extra ceciles lying around that didn't get sold in the sale. I passed on her "offer" and will just chalk this up as a live and learn experience. I was more upset with her offer then the mistake, IMO it could've been handled better. I may have been partially at fault for not specifying pink but they are equally if not more at fault for telling me there was no difference between what I ordered and the climber including color one would assume doubly so if there is no specification about which color it is.

This was my last spot to plant a shrub rose and I had wanted a splash of color in my evergreen bed of boxwoods and gardenias and assorted other green bushes and while I may grow to love this rose it is certainly not what I wanted.

So overall, NOT happy. Started out great. I can believe that normally this is a good company to do business with but I don't think that this innocent mistake was resolved well. For the price of the roses (on sale even) I am happy to shop elsewhere in the future. I've had much better luck on ebay and other nurseries and spent less too.

As far as I know Roses Unlimited stock is own-root. The website is listed as RosesUnlimitedOwnRoot.com.
//www.rosesunlimitedownroot.com/
The plants sold are 2 years old - container grown.

I found it such a pleasure to do business with the people at Roses Unlimited and I feel especially happy to support a mom & pop business. Email responses were returned in a timely manner, usually withing a couple of hours.

I intended to order six roses from RU during their June sale. They had all six plants I wanted. So far so good. I was ready to send in my check. In the last email exchange I expressed my hope that the plants I wanted to purchase were not infected with Rose Mosaic Virus since I was aware of the fact that RU had become infamous of sending out virused plants. As matter of fact I did see virused plants in their greenhouses when I visited them; I left there two roses I originally wanted to buy as soon as I noticed RMV on them but took the risk with 4 others that showed no sign of RMV.

Anyways, the owner�s answer to my inquiry was that it was impossible to know if the plants were clean or not. In my response I indicated that I accept the statement that one cannot know if their entire stock was clean or not, but my question referred to those specific varieties I was about to purchase. These roses were not new by any standards and RU had them for years, so RU should be able to advise me against purchasing x or y specific plant if they noticed RMV on them in the past. I indicated that it would be good enough for me if the owner stated in good conscience that she never noticed virus on the mother stock of these particular varieties or the roses propagated from them.

The response from the owner was that I better go and buy plants from other nurseries who may give me a better guarantee and she listed several nurseries that carry the plants I was interested in.

I am aware of that not every customer is concerned about getting plants infected with RMV but I firmly believe that if a customer wants to purchase clean plants, the given nursery should be willing to give a straight answer instead of being offended by a simple inquiry about this issue. I found RU's approach to Rose Mosaic Virus to be very disappointing.

My favorite rose vendor. They send large, healthy own-root plants that are well packed. I've ordered about 150 roses from 18 different vendors over the past 6 years and have experienced complete satisfaction with only 3 companies. Roses Unlimited gets my top marks out of the three due to their large plants that can go directly into the ground and the wide variety offered.

I have so far ordered twice from this company this spring- and I have ordered from several other own root vendors in the recent past.
The first batch of roses from RU arrived in bud and blooming and packaged perfectly. I was thrilled with this order and set about finding other roses to try. Two weeks ago I ordered again- and again- pristine, large, healthy roses packaged with extreme care. Simply put, other vendors can't rival RU.
This is the one. If I order elsewhere, it will be because Roses Unlimited is out of the rose I want. The Best.

I have just received my order from Roses Unlimited and I could not be HAPPIER! This was my first time ordering from them, but it is only the beginning....I will definitely order from them again & again! I was delighted with the speed in which the plants got here....by using priority mail they were here in 2 days, so the roses were fresh and green. So many places ship UPS or FedEx, which take a week to get here. I was also impressed with the superb packaging....the roses never knew they went anywhere! Not one broken cane, missing leaf, or spilled soil, and the roses were not pruned back like some places, so one of the roses had a BUD on it already! And not one leaf had yellowing or blackspot....they look so healthy I am sure they will take off right away. I highly recommend this company, and Pat is wonderful to deal with. They are a 10!

Roses Unlimited consistently provides large, healthy own-root roses with every order, and their customer service is personal and friendly.
Highly recommended.

LIR

I am able to make a relatively short drive up to Roses Unlimited to purchase my roses directly. They have wonderful stock and everything I have purchased from them has THRIVED! Pat has emailed me back on many occasions to answer my questions patiently and with great expertise. I highly recommend Roses Unlimited!

I ordered 6 roses from Roses Unlimited. They were shipped immediately and arrived in excellent condition. I prefer to grow only own-root roses, and they have an extensive collection. The shipping is reasonably priced, especially given the quality packaging and the size of the roses (they're huge, not dinky little 4" pots). The roses shipped in the middle of July with no problems! I'm very pleased with this company and plan to order more roses in the future.

When I received my order, I was truly impressed with the packaging. IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN BETTER! The plants looked great, and were very moist. I planted them on March 28, following their instructions, and all seven plants have bloomed three times with flowers so big the stems could barely support them. IF YOU WANT STRONG, HEALTHY, BEAUTIFUL ROSES, YOU'LL FIND THEM AT ROSES UNLIMITED!!!

I received 17 roses from RU on time, big and healthy, some in bloom or bud, ready to take off in my garden and all have thrived. Will definitely order from them again.

Plus Pat Henry is an absolute pleasure to deal with.

Top notch experience in every way. My package arrived exactly as expected, and I was met with a whoosh of scent as I cracked open the box--four of the six roses had absolutely sumptuous scented blooms. All are doing wonderfully--my Red Fountain climbers are shooting out new canes and building up their foliage, with superb sprays of deep red blooms... Will definitely order again...

Another great rose company to deal with, they package
very well, deliver on time and most importantly there roses
are superb in every way. The three roses I received the
other day from this company are just a bit smaller than
what you would find in a local nursery but they just look
healthier. I would recommend this company to anyone
looking for their favorite rose, they have a great selection!
I'm very pleased.

Superb, outstanding, flawless -- Roses Unlimited is the best place I have ever dealt with for roses. Received a shipment a few days ago, and the roses were healthy, still moist, and one (Buff Beauty) was in bud and flower. The selection is mind-boggling, and I just love calling in my order because the folks there are so friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. I will definitely continue to purchase from Roses Unlimited, and I tell every other rose lover about them.

I have ordered from other rose companies and was disappointed in the packing and condition of plants. RU is one of the best I have encountered. Before ordering from RU, I had consulted Garden Web members and this forum.
I'm glad I heeded their advice. I highly recommend them. Every part of my transaction from emails to arrival of plants was excellent. I am a RU for life!
Thanks,
MKing

Superlatives are in order for the 5 roses I received this week. Lush, healthy plants that are larger than average for mail-order. Very sturdy packaging & good care/planting instructions. RU readily accommodated changes I made to my order. Hassle-free transaction.