Use a pot-in-pot system. - Dig a hole for a pot that will hold the growing pot. - Plant as desired, then set that pot into "ground-pots" - Through the season, rotate the growing pot at least a quarter turn to ensure that roots don't root into the underlying native soil. Here's how it's done commercially. http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/crops_livestock/crops/nursery_crops/Potinpot+Nursery+Production.htm Here is a link that might be useful: pot-in-pot system

I have wrapped above ground pots with aluminum foil, shiny side out, fastened with duct tape. I have also painted above ground pots white. I mulched with coarse limesstone which is also white, or with perlite. Perlite is too flulffy and tends to blow away. Even with these methods, I had to water figs daily in the summer, and Texas summer is hotter than Washington state summer where I live. I atually checked with a thermometer, and the foil and white mulch does keep the soil at least 10 to 15 degrees cooler, but I don't think that's good enough in hot weather. The leaves also transpire more water in hot weather. I also tried a pot-in-pot method, putting a potted fig into a 1/2 wine barrel that was about 6 inches wider, painted white, and I had styrofoam peanuts around it for insulation to keep it cool. That tree also dried out more on hot days, than the in-ground trees. It did stay cooler than leaving it exposed, however. Some fig forum members have planted their potted figs in the ground. I did a seaarch and I haven't found those entries, but I remember them pretty well. The general idea was that the trees grew roots through the holes in the pots, and when they were dug up, those roots were cut off. This makes digging them a challenge, so one grower used pots that had its bottom holes covered, and had holes in the sides at the bottom. I guess they used a 3/4" drill or something similar, to cut those holes. That was easier to work with. Depending on how big your trees are, they should also be top-pruned and root-pruned while dormant. That helps keep them from transpiring too much water in the summer and also from becoming too root bound. Hopefully someone more expert than I am will also respond, but this should be a little helpful. In the end, my potted fig efforts resulted in fruit drop during hot weather, so I planted mine in-ground again. Some growers have great success with containers, so this year I am thinking about growing containinerized figs again due to cold winter scares December 2008.

Should be OK in the ground in z8.

Okay, I did this a few years back. I, like you, had purchased quite a few roses from my local big box store and I had already had quite a few roses die. The experiment was simple, place all these roses that I had planted in 5-10 gallon pots (the black nursery variety) with good soil into the the ground, pots and all. At first it seemed like a good idea and I will say that for not knowing a thing about the other pillars of rose growing (feeding and spraying) they did fairly well for me...at first. A few observations: 1.) The pots will affect drainage. I, like Ken, added more holes to my pots, but for some pots I went ahead and cut out the bottom completely. Short of doing the later, I would have drainage issues with the pots during the heavy rain season. 2.) Weeds became the dominant issue. In my yard there is little I can do to stop weeds. I've tried most everything and some things work better than others, but no matter what, I always get weeds. During my experiment I was working against a particularly evil crab grass that grows from small bulbs. The crab grass also has a tendency to run roots in every direction looking for a way out. To make matters even "better" it pokes out with a needle thin tip that has made it past commercial grade nursery ground cover. Well, that crab grass found the soil in the pots to be most agreeable and commenced to work its way into my pots through the drain holes. The result was grass that overtook the roses. When I would try to pull this grass out I'd end up pulling the whole pot out of the ground, severing any rose root growth that had made it out of the pots. After seeing several roses die like this I decided to pull one of the pots out and shake out the dirt to see what was going on inside the pots. The root system of this crab grass had overtaken the whole pot and outpaced the growth of the roses. Not good! 3.) When you have a rose die on you, it is fairly easy to start over. You pull from the base stem and, if the rose is good and dead, the remaining root system comes out and voila! Your soil is ready to be amended and a new hole is waiting for its creation. With pots, this is not the case. With time, soil around the pots begins to settle and create a suction that makes easy removal of the pots next to impossible. With many of the pots I ended up cutting or ruining them in order to excavate them. To this day, I still run into some of the pots I forgot to remove when I'm working a new garden. My advice from a fair amount of experience: If you have to plant that Dr. Huey root stocked rose in the ground, pot and all, cut the entire base of the pot. Later on, should you decided to remove the plant and pot, the job will be much easier given the lack of suction. Otherwise, try what I do. I grow the rose in a 5/7 gallon pot and then bump it to a ten gallon pot for about a year (keep it off of the dirt). Once you have established the rose bush into a healthy plant, transfer it into the ground in a large hole with plenty of new dirt. If you fall in love with this rose, take cuttings of it to someone like Geoff Coolidge (sp?) over at Cool Roses and ask him to graft it onto Fortuniana rootstock. The original will last you about three or more years, giving you enough time to start up its replacement. Then again, you could just start with the plant on Fortuniana rootstock from the get-go. I know that I do it because there are times when you find a rare gem at the big box store that you just must try, but it's on the wrong rootstock. This happened to me with Correta Scott King. I found it at Lowes in clearance. Poor thing was half dead but the flower struck me so much that I turned it into my little pet project. Today that plant is five feet high and healthy. Knowing that I'm going to lose it anyway, I have already found it on Fortuniana rootstock from K&M and have hence begun to build it (its replacement) up by placing it in a 7 gallon pot. Either way, enjoy your exploration into modern gardening and please keep us posted on how it went. Good luck, Adrian.