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My rose order from Ashdown arrived today! They had sent me a statement saying they were being shipped on Tuesday, and by yesterday when they hadn't arrived yet, I was beginning to get alarmed and wondering if they had been lost in the mail. But no harm done, they were actually shipped Thursday and only spent two days packed up in a cardboard box.

Two cardboard boxes actually: their big box holds four, and they shipped the fifth in its own box. (I had ordered a sixth, a pale yellow/apricot climber called Lady Hillingdon, but it died over the winter. No big deal, I have plenty enough for what I need.)

Here's what I got:

Crepescule
Awakening
Mme. Alfred Carriere
Reve D'Or
Colonial White

They're all climbers. Most of them are for the bank along the road, but the Crepescule is for the side of the house. The roses all look healthy, and came in big pots which were still moist. I was expecting tiny little babies based on customer reviews on the Gardenweb forums. Well either the Gardenweb folks have higher standards than I do, or Ashdown paid attention to the feedback and started selling bigger roses, because mine are a nice healthy size. Much bigger than other shrubs I've ordered by mail. (I do concede that a couple of them are a bit small for the pot size, and I guess they must have agreed because they gave me half-off the smallest one.) A couple of them even have flower buds already! That was a nice surprise.

I gave them all a good watering and put them on the shady side of the house, to give them a chance to get used to sunlight again. By the time I get the holes dug they'll be acclimatized and ready to plant!

Now, the bad news. One of the roses was infested with aphids. That one was shipped in the big box with three others, and after two days inside a cardboard box, the other three have aphids too.

I wrote to Ashdown and asked them if they have a policy about sending roses with aphids (i.e., is this normal, do they give a credit for the hassle, etc), and also what should I do. In the meantime I isolated the one with really bad aphids from the others, and also isolated the one that had been in a box by itself.

Also while watering them I used a blast of water to knock off the aphids. Which worked better than I had honestly expected. I guess aphids don't hang on that well. I probably didn't get them all, but if I do it again every day, that might actually get rid of the little bastards.