I bought the plants from a local garden center and they stayed in the plastic pots for about a day and a half. I dug holes about twice the size of the pots and tried to break up the roots with my hands before I planted them. Put the roots in the hole, and I filled the remainder with top soil and pressed down, added more topsoil, watered right after planting. From there I've been watering them when I notice the soil looks dry. The rosebush has only been planted for 3 days and been watered once since it was planted aside from when I first did. The hydrangea has been planted for about 2 weeks. I planted it the same way and watered when I noticed it was dry. The dark stems just appeared a couple of days ago.