I will shamelessly hijack this thread! lol) We have 2 climbers in containers which I plan to plant in the ground. I have done it in the past and am familiar with the procedure. However, my concern is about the weather. With the warm weather here in NY, everything including bees, hornets, mosquitoes etc. is confused. The roses are blooming, 4-6 weeks before time. The question is: if I transplant a couple of bushes, and plant the container roses (which were protected during the winter), what happens in case snow and freezing temperatures return? Will they survive?

It might help to know why you want to move the plant (i.e., is it failing to thrive where it is or do workmen need quick access to the area?), but it can probably be done without harming the plant. Any move is stressful, though, so the stress may slow the plant's growth and bloom for a year or so after the move. Camellia roots are mostly close to the surface, and a 3-year-old plant's root system is probably not too extensive, but if you do have some time to work with, it may be easier to move your camellia (and less stressful to the plant) if you start to prune the roots now in advance of a move in the fall. If you don't have that much time before you need to relocate the plant, go ahead and do it ASAP, before (hopefully!) your plant has its annual growth spurt and puts out new foliage. An established camellia in the ground may need very little watering except during dry spells, but in a pot, you will need to monitor moisure to be sure it doesn't dry out. Good luck!

Lozza, you could impart a lot more information to people if you didn't do it in such condescending and sneering manner.... Yes the various states have their Rose and Horticultural Societies, and yes they usually have people only to willing to help out those seeking information about growing roses, and anything else (I guess I can say I speak from personal experience here, my Mum was a member of the W.A. Rose Society, Gosnells Horticultural Society, accredited Rose and general Horticultural and Floral Art judge with the W.A. Horticultural Council. That was the environment I grew up in. The info was always there at hand.) But today, for the average person just getting going, sure they can ask at their nursery but unless they happen to come across an exhibition being staged somewhere like at one of the big shopping centers, they are not going to come across Rose Society members,or other types of horticultural people or even think about consulting with them. Most of them would be too afraid of being shot down in flames for their ignorance, such as I have seen here,after watching the carrion fowl circling and waiting, after reading back through some of the archived postings.... Wal, listen to Misty, she is already doing it your area so to speak. In the warmer climate, proper dormancy is not going to be achieved; MISTY, do think your roses, when they were under water stress, went dormant? I would choose to do it at the time of the year when the weather was at it's coolest for your area. Although this is probably going to be your driest part of the year it shouldn't be a problem. If you are going to be keeping them in pots, for the purpose of transplanting them into your new garden arrangement, I am sure you will be pretty diligent about watering them. I was always taught that you reduced the canopy by the same degree that you reduced the root mass/ball... I have relocated a lot of roses into pots at one time..., (the ones that I could save from a malevolent ex)(if it were people, I think they call it forced migration) about 300 of them. But because we have such sharp winters here, I could hold of until they were truly dormant. I dug up, with a great deal of grunt and push and effort, (ladies think of childbirth) plants that had been growing in the very fertile Donnybrook soil for about 6 years. Most of the H.T and Floribundas had exceeded their growth stats as described, and as for the D.A.'s, if they weren't 7ft tall, they were 7ft wide, and as for the O.G.R, well, digging them up was another challenge. But we did, a sister and a friend came out to help. Totally backbreaking ... heartbreaking as well, but we got the plants dug up. Then, because the only pots that we had managed to acquire in enough numbers were 10- 12" ones, that's where we made things fit. There were a handful of larger pots, that we managed to put in the larger plants, like my beautiful Albertine. But mainly we dug and heaved and grunted, got the bush free off the...

I'm from the school that will plant inground over a container any day. Is there a possibility that new owner might be able to grow inground? If yes, I would pot it and tell her to put inground ASAP. Frankly I don't see potted azaleas in my area. I don't see where you live and perhaps in your area potting azaleas is a common practice.