Grow ‘em in a pot

Ok, I promise, this is my last rose post. For a while. I am impelled to write more on roses—even though I really don’t have many—by the impressive performance of my two container roses. One is the Blush Noisette, about which I posted before. Nuff said. The other is a mystery rose. It was billed as Gloire de Dijon, and of course I bought it, sucker that I am. From Home Depot, no less.


Of course, it’s no such thing (close-up above), and I have no idea what it is. The blooms are light apricot and come quickly, followed by lovely seedheads. What I love about it is that it, like the Blush Noisette (which IS a Blush Noisette), has assumed somewhat of a standard, tree-like form. I suspect they’d both like to be climbers, but that isn’t really allowed, as I have to bring them both in for the winter. This year, they stayed in the garage, but they should be in the root cellar. Their plastic pots are kind of crummy, but there’s no chance of re-potting them. They’re too damn big. Anyway, a ceramic pot would be too heavy. I guess a resin pot might work. What I do is plant them with sweet potato vine, which nicely covers the pot, completely by mid-July. I also have some vines trailing up them, which you can’t see: Black-eyed Susan and an unusual clematis. It remains to be seen how both do.

The point is is that roses work very well in pots. You will probably have to protect them in winter, at least in my zone, but the pot seems to help them avoid many of the common rose problems. And in my experience they seem to bloom better. You have to use a water-soluble fertilizer—the slow-acting ones are not good for pots.