I'm currently renting and have a small gardening space, so right now I have only 8 in pots. Two of those are duplicates that will be given away, so that makes it 6.

It's probably going to take the rest of this year to decide what stays and what is given away out of the rest of them.

I think if the pots are decorative and in great places like you describe, then that looks great. If they're not so great looking they can be disguised by placing shorter plants in front of them.

Zero in pots. They go in the ground when they arrive, somewhere, anywhere...

sounds like you married a "good one"----congratulations---no pot ghettos here----I can no longer dig (too many surgeries) so I have to be content with the roses I have----but I can enjoy all your roses.Please post pictures---
Florence-

Do propagating beds count? Currently I'm trying to clean mine up and finish planting all the cuttings I took last fall--mostly not roses--and stuck in pots, before re-transplanting them to their definitive positions in fall. My permanent pots are things I can't grow in the ground, like succulents and my three camellias. I don't have too many roses in pots at all at the moment; mainly a few cuttings I took in the winter that I'm waiting to see whether they'll leaf out before I stick them in the beds. Things are under control, sort of. I hope that this fall I can get my beds cleared and conduct a big rose-propagating campaign with my own roses: I have quite a few I've never rooted, either trying and failing or never trying at all.
Melissa

I am too embarrased to mention how many I have in pots. I was really doing well - only a few from ARE in Brenham that I got in the fall and was planning to get in the ground in January - then I hit Chamblees. No way to get out of there without loading up. Then my foals started arriving, lots of gardening work to do, then I hit both Chamblees and ARE again.....and bands from Vintage, Rogue Valley and Heirloom plus a few other vendors - you get the picture. Now...foals still arriving [5 last week, waiting on 2 more], my Navy son came in on leave, babysitting granddaughter....I now actually have some free time and plan to spend all this week digging - so hope to decrease the ghetto considerably. I dont know why I think that if I dont buy those roses that very day that they will never be available again...I never learn!
Judith

Only three in pots at present and they will be planted out as soon as I've hardened them off. They arrived in late February from RVR by way of a friend. In my cold climate I can't keep potted roses outside in winter and my basement is too warm and not light enough for roses. I am very happy that I managed to keep these American roses alive inside for so long. This is the second season with roses imported from the US and kept in pots but it is a risky project.

Marianne in Sweden

Thankfully, no pot ghetto of roses here

But I do have a epiphyllum ghetto zone or two. Dad grew them in pots on the ground, needless to say they rooted in the yard, we ran out of pots cleaning them up. I have probably given away a 100 or so...

We also have a few big pot failures on the property, one a palm tree that did a lot of damage to the garage when it grew out of the container dad had left in the driveway, the loquat that grew giant in a couple of inches of decomposed leaves on the driveway, the sprouted avo seed tree I still have to cut down and dig out (it heard the chain saw and bloomed for the first time last year at 20+ years old-too close to the house and will allow raccoon and rats on the roof) There was the yucca that took over 10' of yard, the cactus that over ran the garden...

Guess potted plants do too well at moms place...

Hee hee. I'm not counting the ones that made their own garden through the pots, because now those count as transplants, lol.

I have about a dozen -- that are being planted tomorrow, actually! No, really! I was outside today getting the area and design just right, and my digging help is doing that whole garden manana :)

The rest of the 'transplants' will probably have to wait till fall due to coming heat, but I got about 3/4 of those planted earlier this year. They are so big, lol!

Pot Ghetto...oh no I protest...we must design a better name for the inhabitants of the future. You know like we no longer have garbage men...now they are transfer station tecnicians. So how about future transplant babe land. Nah too wonkie for me.
Anyhoo...about 15 bands which have been transplanted to gallons and are awaiting the big move. About 20 tomato plants which are in gallon buckets and waiting for the soil to warm up more. About the same amount of various cuttings which have been given to me by friends. Some are roses and some are other species.
Probably in another month or two when the greenhouse gets too hot they will all have to be planted.
This is a hugely busy time of the year. But I wouldnt have it any other way.
Jeannie

I've accumulated 5 since I planted my first ever roses in January. I'm still finding my bearings and learning what I like and what I don't.

All the 5 potted roses were planted in the ground straight away after I came back from the nursery, but later taken out and replaced by others as I gradually realized they just weren't right for me. I have an extremely small urban garden (250 square metres) and i'm a rabid non-collector (I routinely go through my things and discard some of them becasue they irritate me. Knicknacks for instance, which I never buy but sometimes get as a gift, never survive more than a couple of months. I just love bare whitewashed walls. Instead of hanging pictures I simply painted the door and window casings blue).

I potted Pat Austin, Golden Celebration, 2 English Sachet and Comte de Chambord.

Pat I'm going to assassinate. I tried passing her on to my neighbour but my neighbour wouldn't have her. The only way to enjoy her is put her on a pedestal, literally speaking. She's great as a cut flower when I put her hight enough, so for me she's in the same category as hybrid teas: great for cut flowers but an eyesore in the garden.

The 2 English Sachet were mislabeled at the nursery and I discovered only on HMF that I actually went and bought hybrid teas (poetic justice). However, I did find a taker for them.

Golden Celebration is in a state of shock after my tabby half-uprooted it 3 months ago in one of his mad rushes through the garden. I actually had to replant the poor thing. It's blooming now but I can't detect any scent (could it be my alkaline soil?) Besides I discovered I can't stare for long at yellow roses. I'll try to find him another home. For some reason I just can't blithely assassinate him like Pat.

Comte de Chambord I couldn't harm for the world. I'll find him a home come what may. I really like him but he doesn't fit in. I discovered the for me it's only floribundas, polyanthas and my beloved hilarious Ragged Robin.

In a paraphrase on "the shot you don't fire is more important than the one you do", I've reached the conclusion that the roses you don't plant are more important than the roses you do.

oh, hundreds. Really. There are loads of rose cuttings and seedlings (I keep them in pots for up to 3 years) and, at this time of year. dozens of seedlings and divisions litter every possible surface and floorspace of the garden - which, incidentally, I refer to as a pot garden since the entire thing consists of raised beds and pots. Generally, the permanent(ish) plants live in large terracotta pots -because the garden is so small, I outlawed glazed pots or anything which was not red clay, to avoid looking 'bitty'. The imagined effect is destroyed by the many, many square plastic pots, modules and trays which lie around. The greenhouse is stuffed and even my bedroom floor has tomatoes under growlights. I never get on top of this because the round of sowing, taking slips, dividing and so on never stops. The pots even spill out onto public land at the front and back of the house.

The bands I received this year are in 1 gal pots growing roots (8). Bare root Austins are in 5 gal pots growing good root system (7). HT's and a few florabundas' received this spring in 2 gal pots were moved into 3 gal pots to grow roots (14). Everything except the bands will be in the ground by August. Starting to see roots in some of the 3 gal pots. I figure 2 bushs' every week and I'll be OK.

This is too funny! At the moment, I have a few over-wintered plants waiting to be repotted...maybe I'll get to them next week. :). The pot ghetto was the garage in the winter, now it's outside the garage.

Oh, wait...I see 2 more pots by the bench....

And, if I make it to Lewis Ginter's spring plant sale this week....

I drive my hubby crazy with my pot ghetto! I really do try to get plants right into the ground...honest! :)

I don't have a pot ghetto. I have a patio pot garden because all the ones in pots are there permanently. There are 32 potted roses that live happily on my patio all the time. That's down from over 60 year before last because we dug a new bed out by the street last summer. For the most part the patio pots are my exhibition HTs and some of the minis. I didn't plant them out in the new street bed because I was worried about how they would do out there. I'm glad I didn't because, as it turns out, some people think it's perfectly OK to take my blooms whenever they like. Last fall I lost all the floribundas I'd been counting on for a show. They wiped me out! So I'll keep my patio garden.

Then, of course, there is the rose seedling nursery which has around 80 in it now. And the patio table is covered in veggies I started inside for the garden. And there are 7 window planters and about 15 other annual pots to fill for summer decoration. I do a lot of pots, lol!

Zero, and I'm so glad.

The roses - they go in the ground almost immediately. The tree "gifts" - that's another story. A friend gave me two fruiting mulberries 2 years ago, and another friend - a cherry "bush" about same time. I finally moved them onto concrete so their roots wouldn't burrow so deep into the surrounding dirt I'd never get them out. I do plan on planting them someday! Then the blueberries are in pots, but they'll have to stay that way as they die as soon as I plant them.

I was at zero for a long time in the actual transient pot ghetto. Then Mme Joseph Bonnaire got lifted and put in a 3-gal pot for lack of any activity of any kind in over a year. I couldn't make the direct trip to the curb with her, so I figured a pot would be a good probationary step prior to her exit, but, great day in the morning, she has been blooming stunning flowers ever since - even without benefit of many leaves.

Recently, I decided that since we're having a tree taken out (when we have the cash) I would get a few babies (two 1-gals & a 3-gal) and then pot them on for planting in the winter/early spring. I discovered that planting out a 1-gal baby (Maggie) in a garden of 5' tall bushes looks stupid, so I'm hoping/planning that they will be so well rooted that they'll take off next spring and catch up quickly to the surrounding roses.

My pot ghetto got cleaned out last year by deciding on a final solution to the lack of space -- put them in bigger pots permanently in every nook and cranny of space: gravel or bed, sun or semi-shade. One of these is Pat Austin, tucked into a fairly shady niche at the base of clematis Venosa Violacea's half of the arbor. She's a bit wimpy, droopy and scantily leafed, but she's not front and center, so I am quite tolerant of her shortcomings since her blooms are such a thrill. I have no problem manually lifting her flowers to gaze uopn them and sniff. With a garden full of pastels I feel like she elevates it to a whole nother level of panache and sophistication - even if you do have to look hard for it.

I found that Marchessa Boccella likes her pot in a goodly amount of shade and is green and blooming strong. Napoleon survived being dug up and plopped in a pot to make room for a less worthy rose that ultimately left the garden. He may go to the vacancy created by the tree removal. Two Red Drifts, Lauren and Gruss an Aachen occupy the back patio permanently, and five are in the front circle permanently.

So only 4 in the ghetto now, but talking about it has given me the yen for more. :))

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I have 8 roses that are in pots on purpose, so I really don't consider them a pot ghetto. More like pot suburbs.

My true pot ghetto, plants that are awaiting planting, currently consists of about a dozen roses, 3 manzanitas, 1 bay laurel, and on the veggie side, 6 pumpkins, 2 cucumbers, and 1 tomato.

I'll probably plant the veggies over the next couple of days, so maybe they are really in the pot quick-stop motel.

Rosefolly

I lied so badly, lol! We got half of my new garden done today, and it was 11 roses. So that's more like 22 total rather than a dozen :D I'll call it a 'rose dozen', like a baker's dozen, maybe :D

Add another to my list, too. I just got an email saying a rose I ordered (and forgot about) is being shipped. It was too small to ship at the time.

BUT it's Edith de Murat, which is supposed to be Mme Cornelissen. I already have MC from another source, so if they turn out to be the same rose, then one will be given away, and I'm back to 6.

Loving this thread! I have 19 roses in my ghetto... and it is only my second year with roses... and I only really got interested in them about half way through last summer. (I have planted more than 20 in the ground already.) Some ghetto roses have a final destination and just need to spend some time getting bigger but others- well I haven't a clue where they will end up. For the moment, I am enjoying my ghetto. My husband built me some plant benches and I made myself a sitting area so I can plop down with a glass of wine at the end of the day and just behold their glory. Who would have guessed that 19 black plastic pots could bring me such joy? I am a curator (by profession) and my husband says he can see me out the window curating my ghetto- moving them around to best achieve a harmonious composition. It is much harder to do that once they are in the ground. I am quite certain I would not want to be without a ghetto. Nichole

and I made myself a sitting area so I can plop down with a glass of wine at the end of the day and just behold their glory. Who would have guessed that 19 black plastic pots could bring me such joy?

Love that! I know exactly what you mean. I bet everyone else here does, too!

I usually wind up with some sort of pot ghetto. I generally keep my band plants in pots for a while to get them going and see what their flowers look like. I also do that to some of the bare roots I get to give them an identity check and see what they look like. This year I thought I had it made in the shade. Few plants ordered and new bed areas dug for them. Then I got a letter from the city. They are finally getting around to fixing/replacing the bridge over the creek and wanting to do some creek bed improvements to help stop erosion and the sliding of the hill and all the houses down the hill towards the creek. They needed to do an easement/eminent domain thing right through one of my rose beds that had 46 roses and 2 clematis. The whole thing has to go. I am currently digging out the roses which are in flower right now and potting or resiting them. This is a royal pain, but it gives me an opportunity to completely redo that bed, which it needs. So, I will have a large pot ghetto for a while this year.

Me, too, loved it, Nichole. (Talk about understanding husbands!) Maybe I'm missing that - I mean a bigger pot ghetto would give me more of that, right? Oh, that reminds me. I must go water them.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

No pots because I don't like them and I tend to kill plants in them. The bands go in the ground three or four days after they arrive, and they don't seem to mind. I've had very few failures. Fortunately my husband is very gracious about planting my roses the moment I ask, so I don't have to look at any pots.

Ingrid

My Ralph Moore Miniature Garden and my Labyrinth Garden have been delayed for two years now. In the meantime, the roses I bought to fill these new gardens sit in pots ... 150+ for the mini garden and about 40 for the Labyrinth. Add in a few spur-of-the-moment purchases and other roses that will replace dead/underperforming roses in the rest of the gardens, and I'm well over 200 right now. I hope to have at least the two new gardens planted by the end of June (please, I have to get these roses out of their pots).

If I were to have a planting party, would anyone come?

Ooh! I'd try my best if y'all have any cheap hotels where you are. I haven't done a rosey trip in ages.

Speaking of pots... Cleaning them is not one of my favorite tasks. I used to clean them in the kitchen sink. Now I plop as many as will fit nested in a ten gallon bucket with Chlorox, dish detergent and water, let them sit an hour or more (sometimes days) and finish by rinsing them with the garden hose and scrubbing with a brush.

Does anyone have a favorite/less painful method?

Cath

I was so proud that I finally got Tamora, Winter Sunset and Caramel Fairy Tale in the ground and donated Lamarque and put Martha Gonzales out of her misery.
So what did I do? Ordered Cubana, Easter Basket and Rita Levi Montalcini. Hope they will be happy in pots cuz I'm out of space!
Gee I was down to 3 permanent pot denizens-- Jude the Obscure, Sweet Chariot and Marie Pavie. So I guess I "needed" more!
Once I get around to staining the deck I'll move the prettiest up there where I can actually see them.

None. All planted but Lyda Rose which is in a pot until I finish my patio.

I have so many potted plants it's ridiculous! Luckily only 9 of those are roses, and there are just 3 who are actually waiting on a home. Daylilies on the other hand...

Well I'm just glad to know the 8 bands in pots on the walkway are correctly referred to as a "Pot Ghetto." Who knew. I gather from this thread that having one is part of the side effects?

Does growing them on, until they bloom so that you can figure out what they are because the mail order nursery failed to label them, count?

Cath

Yes Cath41 - that counts. Along with those we are holding in reserve in case the mother plant fails or those that we are growing out enough to plant or because this is the worst time of the year here to plant. Fall is much better but the selection in the fall is not always that good so I tend to buy bands in the spring, place them in the pot ghetto nursery until they are bigger and the weather is cooler. We have several hundred pots some of them containing roses waiting to be planted, some perennials and annuals that hubby has sitting on the decks and then there is his tropical group - bananas, all sorts of citrus and other weird stuff, including a coffee plant, budda belly, dragon fruit - the list goes on and they all go back into the attached greenhouse when the weather gets cold.

Can you guys post photos of your pot 'garden' I want to see what yours looks like :-)

Hey now, if they are in your green house, they do not count! Right...lol

Or hidden in the corner under the lemon tree....or on that old bench under the persimmon tree (not roses, Epiphyllums-they set "dragon fruit" too)

I think I have about 10 that are meant to be in pots...nice fancy pots.

Then...about 50 in 1 gallon pots that I purchased as bands and I'm I'm waiting for them to get a little bigger before I transplant them into the ground...

Tammy

Patio Pot Garden June 2011

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Rosefolly's pot ghetto under the crape myrtle tree:

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Love the pics!

seil, can you keep your potted roses outside in winter? I think my climate is somewhat similar to Michigan's and here it is not possible. I don't have a frost free greenhouse and a too warm basement.