Moving hibiscus and roses

[HaveYouSeenHerLately]

A neighbour's hired a professional firm to landscape their back garden, in the process getting rid of all the plants lovingly tended over decades by previous elderly owner.

They know I love gardening and have given me free rein this weekend to take anything I like as it's all going to the great composter in the sky (sob!)
Happily they have a new planting scheme in place.

Is this a pointless endeavour? I've spied some gorgeous yellow roses and a bed of hellebores. There are four mature hibiscus, 4' high and shaped (2 oiseau blue, 2 white) which I love. I have no idea whether I'd be crazy to try and rescue one. The roots must be pretty established.

The garden itself is very old-fashioned with a lot of concrete. The flowerbeds seem a bit shallow/ scrubby and contain a lot of perennials which I'm hopeless at IDing, which haven't reppeared yet in any case. I have reasonable success with indoor cuttings when I bother to research the plant/ process
I'm in the SE and it's been pretty chilly this week.

Any thoughts appreciated

No, it's an absolutely BRILLIANT plan... free, gorgeous plants! There's absolutely no reason why they wouldn't do really well. Now is actually one of the best times of year to transplant roses. Hibiscus prefer to move in autumn but should manage just fine now. Hellebores may struggle a bit more as it's their flowering season, but I've put them in during February and they've been OK! In any case, what have you to lose? GO FOR IT!

With each plant, try to dig them out with as much rootball as you can - I find that keeping the soil as intact as possible around the roots helps, and this is particularly important for the hibiscus. Fig a really big hole to plant them in (far bigger than the width of the rootball). But be careful that the hibiscus in particular is at the same level with the soil as it was in the previous garden - they can die if transplanted too deep.

Give the roses some well-rotted manure round the roots, and dig in plenty of compost round the roots of everything else. Firm them in well with your feet and give them a bit of water. (I know that sounds crazy given how wet it's been, but it's really important).

Then, give the hibiscus a really good chop - you want to be reducing it by at least a half. This will help it get through the shock. Give the roses a prune too.

Thank you so much shove - I thought I could count on you

I shall report back tomorrow...

Update - I succeeded in lifting the hibiscus, three of them! I slightly misjudged their size as two are more like 5ft and the one I had to leave was 6ft They came up relatively easily due to the concrete-ness of the garden. I shall give them a prune asap as you suggest!

I couldn't get the rose as the root/stump was enormous and the surrounding vegetation very overgrown. It was all one rose rather than the 3-4 singular plants I'd imagined.

Also took a good few clumps of hellebores (purple) which I ought to be able to divide in time. Lovely!

Oh and a few potted shrubs - yellow azaelia and some kind of red bottlebrush thing.

Sadly couldn't get to grips with the perennials as I hadn't a clue what various things were. Had I known their plans in the summer I would've sought permission to tag them for identification

I'm actually running out of space in the flowerbeds so probably for the best. Hate to see plants be binned!! It was soooo cold, I underestimated my own hardiness.

Next step will be to expand the flowerbeds by shaping the lawn into a curve. I can't settle on a shape

Oh and we did a mega-prune of the laurel at the bottom of the garden, took various branches off and filled the green bin to the brim with snipped leaves

I like a bit of laurel for screening (ugly houses behind) but it was overgrown.

Oh well done - great job, especially as it was fr-fr-fr-freeeeeezing at the weekend!

I am v v jealous of your new hellebores and hibiscuses (that feels like it's the wrong plural!) Hopefully the latter will thrive and look absolutely brilliant for you every summer. (Don't be surprised if they're knocked a bit by the move this year - as long as they look healthy, they will bounce back).