Bring out your Dead! - Plants that just couldn't thrive in a fast paced environment - April 2026

A new series for the blog, when you see a post like this, you know that some plants have just not done their best. You know that some of the little leafy recruits just couldn't thrive in a fast-paced environment. Natural selection has occurred, and these particular plants no longer live in my garden. 

Sometimes it's their fault, sometimes it's my fault- sometimes some mishap, sometimes the weather- but either way the end result is the same, a few less plants.

The Dearly Departed:

• Plum - Damson
• Peach - Contender
• Rose - Blue Romanesque
• Rose - Drape
• Rose - Lotus
• Peony - Bartzella
• Raspberry - Jewel
• Rose - AUSChestnut
• Rose - AUSChimbley
• Rose - AUSPoly
• Rose - AUSBuff
• Dahlia - Rosemary Webb

What Went Wrong:

The two fruit trees came from Tractor Supply out of the bareroot trees that come bagged up, believe the DeGroot brand. I broke my main rule on these, which is to only buy if there are obvious leaves/leaf buds. I really wanted a Damson plum and so I gambled on this one which had a nice 1" caliber trunk and seemed maybe alive. Unfortunately, upon opening the package, these had 4" long roots having been cut very aggresively short. I potted them anyways and have spent 8 weeks now dutifully moving them oustide for good days and indoors for below freezing days. Today I decided to check root development and pulled them both to find just rot and mold. Off to the burn pile they went. I really, really need to follow my own rules on these. Raspberry - Jewel was also a bareroot stick, but none of those were leafed and I really wanted one, so gambled but this also just rotted instead of coming to life. 

The first set of roses, Blue Romanesque, Drape and Lotus, their loss is my fault entirely. I ordered them very late in the season and hoped they would overwinter in my garage only to find out the hard way that my garage does get too cold. Another one, Nausicaa, must be a lot more cold hardy as that one still has signs of life.I was about to chuck it as well and noticed brand new feeder roots forming, so gently repotted it and put it back. Peony - Bartzella is the same story. It came in perfectly viable and I potted it and put it in my garage as it arrived after my ground was frozen. It cracked and split during the freezes of winter and appears to be rotting. Well, now I know, I either need a way to heat a section of my garage or I need to put things in the crawlspace instead. 

The next set of roses were another late order in 2025. They came from a vendor I've ordered from for years, but previously I always ordered the 1 gallon size and got nice large plants. This time I ordered quart size and their tags were all dated as though the cuttings had been stuck in the last 12 weeks. Not great. One fell out of the pot in shipping and only had a few approximately 2" long roots. Not ideal. I limped them along for awhile, but was not winning the battle, so I hoped maybe they would be better off dormant. That did not work at all. I probably would still have at least two of them if I'd kept them in the house instead. Going forward, I won't order quart size so late in the season. 

The dahlia I purchased as a second with the description, 'lightly wrinkled, still viable'. What I received instead was very wrinkled, not eyed. I was suspicious that it had been previously froze, so cut the end off to reveal that translucent interior of a previously frozen tuber. I'm really starting to think that most wrinkled tubers are previously frozen tubers. Other than the really skinny tubers, if a tuber is normal size and wrinkled I usually find that it's not a viable tuber and is either completely rotted or previously frozen. Anyways, I put it in a ziploc bag on a heat mat in hopes it would eye before it rotted, but not luck, rot won the race. I received a Hollyhill Lilliput from the same seller that is the same story, but, still enough material left to try for an eye- but it will probably be on next month's 'bring out your dead'.