Can I plant a new rose where an old rose died?

Rose replant disease — also called rose sickness or specific replant disease — is a well-documented and slightly mysterious effect. The soil where a rose has grown for some years becomes hostile to a new rose specifically, while remaining perfectly good for anything else. The current understanding points at soil-borne organisms building up around the roots of the established plant. The cause is arguable; the effect is not, and it catches out a lot of people replacing a rose in an existing bed.

Step by step

1. Recognise when the risk applies.It applies where roses have grown in the same spot for several years and you want to plant another rose there. It does not apply to planting a rose in ground that has grown anything else, and it does not affect other plants going into an old rose bed.
2. Option one — move the position.Much the simplest answer. Even a metre or so away is often enough, provided you are outside the root zone of the plant that was there. Plant something other than a rose in the old position.
3. Option two — change the soil.Dig out a hole roughly 450 to 600mm across and the same deep, take that soil away and use it elsewhere in the garden where roses are not going, and refill with topsoil from a different part of the garden. Bought topsoil works too. This is the traditional answer and it is effective, but it is real digging.
4. Option three — use mycorrhizal fungi at planting.Sprinkle the granules directly onto the damp roots so they are in contact with them, not scattered in the bottom of the hole. Trials by rose growers have found this substantially reduces the effect, and it is far less work than replacing the soil. Many rose nurseries now supply it with bare-root orders for this reason.
5. Combine the measures on an important plant.Replacing the soil and using mycorrhizal fungi together is the belt-and-braces approach for a rose you particularly want to succeed.
6. Improve the new soil at the same time.Whatever soil goes in, work in well-rotted organic matter. Rose beds that have carried roses for a decade are usually depleted as well as sick.
7. Plant properly and water generously in the first two summers.A rose fighting replant effects needs everything else in its favour. Plant at the right depth, mulch, and water deeply and regularly through the first two growing seasons rather than relying on rain.
8. Judge it over two seasons before giving up.An affected rose looks stunted and pale, makes short growth and flowers sparsely rather than dying outright. If it has not established after two full seasons of good care, it is unlikely to.

Tips

• A new rose in an old rose bed that never grows away is far more often replant disease than anything you have done wrong.
• The affected soil is not permanently ruined. Growing something else there for a few years, or simply moving the roses around a bed rather than replacing like with like, avoids the problem entirely.
• This effect is not unique to roses — the same specific replant reaction is well known with apples, and for the same practical reasons.
• If you are replacing several roses in one bed, it is usually less work to lift and replace the top 400mm of soil across the whole bed than to dig individual pits.

Common mistakes

• Assuming good compost in the planting hole solves it — It does not. Filling the hole with rich compost also encourages the roots to stay in the pocket instead of spreading, which makes establishment worse rather than better.
• Scattering mycorrhizal granules loose in the bottom of the hole — The fungi must be in physical contact with the root surface to colonise it. Sprinkle them onto the damp roots directly.
• Blaming the nursery when a replacement rose sulks — A healthy plant in replant-affected soil behaves exactly like a poor plant. The soil is the more likely explanation if a rose grew there before.

Questions people ask