My trip to Tasmania.

My girls and I loved the house and land in Tasmania that we are buying. The property is well placed to travel to the shops or Launceston, or to the beach. The country around our future place is very country and the neighbours next to us are very nice and they have a great big garden. Our new car went really well on our trip down and back.
I have worked out where I am going to plant my roses down there. I have started digging them up here at our old place. In about five weeks I will be taking a load down.
I have dug some big bushes up so I have worked out the best way. Water them well, cut the canes low with a branch saw and then lift the root ball with a crowbar and cutting any thick roots with the branch saw or a big knife on the thinner roots that don't break earlier. I am putting them into a big old half rain water tank that has a bit of water in it. I am filling the other half of the tank with sand and then I will move them to the sand till it is time to load them into the trailer.
The roses have to be scrubed of all dirt and sprayed by a quarentine inspector before I travel to Tasmania. Then they get checked when I get off the boat at Devonport. There can be no dirt on the trailer either.
Wish me luck, please !

you need a lot of luck and I wish you well on your new venture. Have you worked out how many back and forth trips you have to do to get all your roses there?

Maybe two, we will see how many go in the first lot.

would it be worth money wise to get a bigger vehicle or truck and do it in one shot...just a thought....

Well Roseman said he reckoned I could do it in one trip if I cut them right back. Well we will see how I go. There are some big root balls so far and lots more big ones to come. Not to mention my weepers and Camillias.
I will be going down every school holiday anyway, and it would only cost me another three hundred fifty extra for each other trip and then I can be not rushing trying to do the impossible witin a deadline. So I can pace myself. I have a year from the end of May, before I have to have all the roses out of here.
I am determined to take my first load in about five weeks. Also, if the first load is refused entry to Tasmania, least I can learn from the first lot what I did wrong.

GO KAREN !!! Best of luck. I too have moved very mature bushes I think it all comes down to how close you cut them down and at what stage.

All the best! A seemingly monumental task but I'm really happy there is a way you can take your rosey friends!

Thanks Ozrose and Autumn Damask. Hopefully they will be fine. My friend said to me the other day to expect a percetage of loss and I would be very lucky if they all transplanted happily, well I hadn't even been thinking of loss.
I dig snap one or two the other day with the crowbar before I started deep watering them, as it had been raining before that. That was out of about twenty young roses so that is pretty good I reckon. I can replace those ones. I hit the stem above the graft, bad aim of mine.
They are my rosey friends that I haven't been spending any time with because my ride on blew up some time ago and the grass become a alwful monster. And why bother when the mines were buying you out anyway. Very soon I will be buying my first new ride on to use in Tasmania. Also their is a man in Tasmania that I am getting to slash my garden paddock very soon.
I certainly will be spending some time with my roses from now on !

BOY you have a HUGE job ahead of you, all the best with the move

Thanks The Estate ! I have got a year to do it, so I will pace myself, no panicing.

Good luck with the move rosemeadow

Don't worry Karen is one hell of a good toiler. What she did planting her garden is beyond what a girl of her age is considered capable of. It's for this reason she has my admiration. Being a really nice person also helps.

Thanks Jordan ! And thanks Bruce, you always say such nice things !
Actually I haven't been digging roses up for some days because I went to the rally against coal seam gas and coal mines in Sydney via a free bus run by the Farmers Association.
Then it was my youngest girl's 5th birthday and yesterday I was consumed with reorganising my plans. I have decieded that I will be moving to Tasmania at the begining of the Summer holidays, instead of hanging around here for the next 5 and a half years. My ex will just have to have my two eldest daughters in all the length of the school holidays and visit them in Tasmania. We can't mange to do what I was trying to do in keeping his daughters in the same area, it wouldn't be good for us.
Since making that decision I have discovered there is a really good school in Launceston for my oldest daughter, who will be going into year 11 next year. She is so excitted about it. There are 500 students in the year she will be going to, where as of present there are 60 students in her year and will have dwindled by next year. In Tasmania for year 11 and 12 they have another school for those years called a college, for getting them ready for University. This school sounds more like a university/resort. So I have made the right decision
I am so excitted ! I worked it out I will have only about 4 and a half months here if I thake out the other other time spent moving the rosrs etc to Tasmania and planting them during the school holidays.
Another excitting thing is that we finally are set up for using our computers while at home or travelling. I will able able to take some photos soon too, to post here.
I better get back to digging the roses.

sounds like you have lots of work ahead of you rosemadow

To everyone,
If anyone can do this it will be Karen.

Dont forget Karen our offer of help stands.
You have so much to do now in a very short time,
We will be in touch.

Hi Jordan and Carole. I will definitely be having the two trips atleast, so the pressure is off a bit. And I won't be putting them in the sand or dirt now as I am going to leave them in the water until I am ready to scrub them and then put them in the pool linner in the trailer. I thought how it would be too hard scrubing the creek sand off the roots and grafts and I have had roses in water up to a month and they have been alright to grow on when I planted them. The roses are comming out easy with the crow bar lifting them.
Thanks for the nice comment, Carole.

Hi Karen, Good Luck.

Let me see if I can arrange Jane Edmanson of Gardening Australia's to have her crew cover this event.

All the best with the move...

Hehe Good idea Alee! I'm sure there is a book in it..... Take plenty of photos Karen!