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Roses on Balcony

12 years ago

I've ordered the following list of roses to arrive this spring. A few of them I've already grown in a prior home so I'm familiar with their habits.

However, for the first time I'm considering placing a few of them on a 2nd floor balcony off of a guest room. The balcony actually gets the best sunlight on my property - pretty much all day long, as it has no cover. It's sturdy (my contractor has give me the ok on it as it sits over the front porch), a good size, and I can fit several large pots up there along with a couple of chairs and small table. I'm also thinking off putting tomatoes up there since I'm pretty sure they won't do well on the ground anywhere.

Anyway, I'd like opinions which of the following would do best in pots, if I go this route; and any tips you can give as far as growing them in this manner.

Papa Meilland

Tropicana

Valencia

Neptune

Reine des Violettes

Ebb Tide

French Lace

Gertrude Jekyll Climbing

Tradescant

I know for certain GJ is NOT a candidate. I grew her before, the regular version and she's a monster! Let alone her prickles alone would take her out of the running.

I grew French Lace and Papa Meilland before and both were on the short side for me. Tropicana was a bit too tall so I think that one is out too. The rest I have no experience with but it seems like Ebb Tide may be ok there too.

I'll have a water supply handy (my spigot is on that side of the house and we intend to run the hose up to the balcony). I'm particularly interested in knowing how to over-winter them up there for next year since it will not be possible to move them off to a more sheltered spot.

Thanks in advance to any help offered :)

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Comments (2)

seil zone 6b MI
12 years ago
Reine des Violettes can be grown in a pot, I've done it, but she gets really huge. And she does not like too much pruning so you can't just whack her back because she won't bloom then. So I don't think she'd be a good candidate for that space. I'm not familiar with any of the other ones but most hybrid teas, floribundas, mini/minifloras and short shrub roses should do great.

As for wintering that depends on how much trouble you want to go to. The best place is in the garage but that would mean hauling them up and down which will be a BIG job! I winter mine outside along the south wall of the house but they're wrapped in burlap and packed with leaf mulch which would be hard to do up on a balcony. Perhaps just pushing them up against the wall of the house and wrapping them with burlap would be enough but the only way to know that for sure is to try it and see. And even then it would depend on how severe the winter was. The thing you need to look at is how to keep the root balls insulated in the pots and the canes from drying out on the tops.
Laurie
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks seil.

I intend to get very large pots for any I put up there, so if I use RDV as one of them I'll keep your advice in mind.

As for winter, I certainly wouldn't bother bringing them downstairs for the winter. Yikes. Wrapping in burlap is the way to go I guess. I suppose we could put down a large tarp and fill it with leaf mulch and then wrap that up all up around the pots too. Easy enough to dump it all out over the balcony into the yard, come springtime lol. There's a bed right down from there which will have more roses/flowers anyway :p
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