Growing Roses in Containers

Hey it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm. Today I want to answer some of the common questions about growing roses in pots or larger containers like this one over here. But why would you even consider growing them constrained to little pots when they so clearly love to grow large like this? Or when they grow so beautifully mixed in with garden companions like you see here? Well one of the more common reasons might be to escape poor underlying soil whether it's poor drainage or rocky soil or very alkaline soil going into a container or a raised bed can help you to escape that poor soil condition. Or if you're working with a deck or a balcony you might not have the in-ground gardening space at all. You might be trying out new varieties for the garden just don't know where to put them yet or where you have the right sun and exposure and just want to try them in a pot for a while or you might be moving soon and don't want to leave them in the garden that you're leaving behind. So whatever your valid reason for growing in pots or containers is and there are many one of the first questions I often hear is how large should my pot be? You'll often see roses sold in the garden centers in a three or five gallon size that's maybe 10 or 12 inches across the rim. You'd like to go larger than that for its permanent home somewhere in the range of 16 to 18 inches for a medium rose grown to full size. You might be able to get away with a pot this size for a miniature or a patio rose for a duration but it will take frequent watering and I know on this one here I'm watering every day or every second day for sure. The larger the pot is in relation to the plant the longer you can go between waterings and I'd like to aim for only having to water once or twice a week if I can. The other trade-off we're talking about here is weight so the larger you go the heavier this thing is and that has implications in terms of storing it for winter moving it around or again later property so the bigger it is the better it is for the plant in general but also the trade-off is the weight. Well just because I said bigger is generally better at least as far as the plant goes does that mean you should go up to the largest pot size you can right at the first step? My answer to that is generally no. I like to go straight up to that say 16 inches across size first and then stage up as needed. This plant here Wild Blue Yonder does become a sizable shrub in the garden it would be fine in this container for a while even better in a 16 inch and then after a year or so when it's filled that up with its roots and it's struggling for water you're not able to keep it watered with that once or twice a week watering then you can go up even higher up to 20 inches or so and beyond as needed. Maybe the very next question is what should you put into those containers in terms of potting soil and what I like is a container mix that has lots of perlite you can buy the perlite separately to amend your soil if you need to but I like something like this that has a good amount of perlite in it already this is not a branded video so I'm not sponsoring this one at all it's just one of the ones that is commonly available in North America and made for container plants. The idea behind the perlite is to allow it to be well draining, maintain air for the roots and also maintain some lightness in that pot. If you went for something like garden soil you might simultaneously have problems with both drainage and with heavyweight pots which make your life a little more difficult. To round out the topic on containers let's ask the question what is the best material that you should use for large pots or containers in your roses? One of the options is plastic those big nursery pots come in a wide variety of sizes they tend to be lightweight durable they don't break during freeze and thaw cycles they maintain moisture well so overall for growing they're kind of my favorite. What about decorative ceramic well it looks better oftentimes but can be fragile and very heavyweight clay can also be fairly heavy and it also actually saps the moisture out from that soil so you'll find that it dries up pretty quickly in a terracotta or clay container. Another option that you hear about these days is grow bags but they are the most drying of all I find that they actually dry out the quickest so for my money I still like plastic for growing my best of all world solution would be a ceramic outside with a plastic liner or pot inside sized so that you basically get the advantage of the plastic pot when you have to remove it but that the ceramic around it makes it look better and then also shields that black plastic or dark plastic from the sun's rays which tend to heat it up very quickly so that's my best of both worlds advice for you. Another question I'll often field is whether you can grow a very large rose or even a climber in a pot and of course you can but depends on the size of the pot in this case I've gone very oversized this is about 30 inches across but I would suggest at least going up to about 20 to 24 inches across for large roses or climbers so they just have some stability in terms of temperature and moisture supply for the rose so yes you can but you have to go up to a larger pot size as for the reason why I've grown this one in such a large pot and on the ground in the garden I have a septic field below this so I just didn't want the roots to go way down into the septic field that's my reasoning and another reason you might consider containers. Now let's talk about fertilizer because when I'm fertilizing for plants in the ground I tend to go with bulk organic amendments things like alfalfa compost manure or just basically organic things that feed the soil when it comes to a pot or a container I shift my recommendation over to slow release fertilizers like osmocote controlled release fertilizers or with the liquid feed fertilizers that you can control the dosing of on a week-to-week basis. The reason I make that shift is because while roses in the ground here have a large soil volume constant moisture and lots of organic activity to release those organic fertilizers in a container that can be questionable over time so having that controlled release releasing on a predictable schedule can feed your rose a little bit more consistently also having that control of doing a liquid feed fertilizer gives you the control so that's why I shift my recommendations for containerized roses. The final question I'm going to address is do you have to do anything different when caring for your containerized or potted roses as compared to something in the landscape and let's break this into a couple of areas let's talk about pests and let's talk about pruning and the answer is no not really I mean there are the same pests and the same pruning techniques it's just that when you have the plant sort of separated from the rest of the plants in the garden and maybe on your deck or close by you may be able to spend a little more time and attention on the plant and they'll benefit from that scouting for things like aphids spider mites the damage of leaf hoppers and other things may allow you to get on them a little bit sooner and because they aren't surrounded by their garden companions here the predatory insect population may be a little bit lower so you may have to resort to a little bit more of scout remove leaves and spray although I still recommend staying to the basic low harm sprays things like insecticidal soap or wettable sulfur are my go-tos for most pests work pretty well on aphids especially the insecticidal soap and spider mites especially the sulfur as comes to pruning same thing you'll want a dead head as needed when you find dead or spent blooms out in the garden you'll want to use that opportunity when you have those spent blooms to go around and thin and remove old dead stems or stems that just aren't productive and on the inside of the plant so you get better air circulation through the rows that goes for the ones you have in the landscape but like I say if you have it in a container removing excess stems and excess leaves also helps you to cut down on the watering needs of the plants as well so staying right on top of it giving it a little more focus will give you some advantages in a container garden all right that's all my answers today on how to grow roses in pots or containers I've probably missed something and if I did I'd like to hear from you in the comments down below the video and we'll see what we can do to help