I'm sure I can at least save you the price of the container if, in the end, you're willing to follow my instructions. W/o question the best thing for the plant, even in spite of its size, is to repot it - not pot up a size or two. I'm also guessing that before you would be inclined to heed my advice, though, you might need some sense of whether or not I know what I'm talking about. I'll suggest you read this thread, which addresses specifically ficus grown in containers. After that, if you still have interest, you might find this thread about maintaining trees in containers for the long term to be of help. If you do, and you think I CAN help, just ask & I'll provide you with a step by step procedure. Normally I would say that it's too late in the growing season to be undertaking such significant root work, but because of where you live the light's still green. Al

Is this the Yates Spray you're using? http://www.yates.com.au/products/disease-control/concentrates/yates-rose-shield-insect-disease-spray/ If so, it says the fungicide is systemic, meaning it absorbs into the plant and incorporates into the sap to provide the protection for two weeks. Spraying more frequently than that can damage foliage and over expose you, your pets (if any) and anyone else coming in contact with the chemicals. If your roses continue mildewing after the systemics have reached their "sap levels", you have other issues at work. Water stressed plants can also experience diseases because of the stress. You can force them to mildew even when the conditions aren't proper for the disease by keeping them too dry. Not necessarily that you aren't watering enough, but the reflected, radiated heat from surrounding surfaces "cook" the water out of the plants. Perhaps the pots are over heating from the air temperature, direct sun shining on them or the radiated/reflected heat from walls or the patio floor? Growing other plants in the pots with them also increase the competition for water in those soil balls. The traditional conditions favoring mildew are cool and damp. If your roses are mildewing when it's either hot and humid or hot and dry (and nights aren't cool and damp), that sounds like water stress induced mildew to me. Are the roses mildewing worst closest to either direct sun exposure on their pots, or closest to the hottest walls where the sun shines most directly, for the longest period of the day? If they are, that also helps point the finger toward water stress induced mildew. Might these also have the ground cover growing vigorously in their pots? That ground cover is using water the rose seems to need to help prevent the mildew. Yes, some roses are much more susceptible to mildew than others. Your local rose garden center/nursery should be able to point you toward those varieties. You can also find out that kind of information about many roses on Help Me Find-Roses. You can make a list of what's available locally, then check Help Me Find to see if there are statements about their disease resistance on the site. But if you've used your systemic spray properly for several weeks or longer and these are still mildewing, the other possibilities I've offered could easily account for why the problem isn't clearing up. You may want to take a look at their placement on the balcony to see if by moving them around, you might alleviate some of the greater heat these might be experiencing. You may also want to consider removing the ground cover and any other companion plants from the pots of the roses which continue mildewing. You might also need to increase the size of the pots they grow in. If they're too small, the plant will consume all the water they can hold, or it might cook out too quickly, leaving the plant "thirsty", inducing it to mildew. Once thing is certain, I would not suggest using the Yates more frequently than the label instructs. You should have enough of it in the plant sap after several applications and a few weeks for it to begin working. It won't remove the mildew on older foliage which already show symptoms, but it should prevent the new foliage from mildewing as long as it is used properly. I hope it helps. Kim Here is a link that might be useful: Help Me Find - Roses

Hi, I have bee using Thrive but I am just about out so I might give the Miracle Grow a try. I have my roses in both, planted,and in pots. As for other plants,at the end of one rose bed we do have lavender, and there are quite a few gladioli in the front garden. Last year l made over a old raised garden bed and put my roses in that, and they did ok. But this year they have just taken off I cannot believe how much they have all grown I was going to put a photo on here but most of the roses have bloomed so there was not a lot to see, but having said that there is a second flush coming through. As for watering in this hot weather I give all my rose a small amount first thing before i go to work an a watering when I get home.But once a week I put all the potted ones in bucket of water and Thrive,and give the others a good soak and feed. We live near Nambour Hospital. Your questions are not a problem that's why we are on here.

Safety tips for the garden: NEVER USE GAS nearby a flame source, like a pilot light in a water-heater, or furnace, or a tiny ember. One neighbor used gasoline to kill a big & thorny rose grafted on Dr. Huey: she poured on the rose, then put a trash-can-lid over it so it could not get rain. That surely destroyed the soil. During my volunteer days in rehab (decades ago), I still remember a man, burnt badly from head to toe ... he was in utter misery. He told me how he did it: through using gasoline to kill a patch of poison ivy. Another man did the same and became a human fireball, except he attempted to light some wood in a wrought iron outdoor fireplace, the $99 type at HomeDepot. He could not get fire started, so he grabbed the red-can of gasoline container (for mowing the lawn).. it has just a little of gas inside. He thought he could splash just a tiny bit of gas onto the barely alive flicker on the log .. but that tiny flame ignited the fumes and shoot the flame into the gas can and caused a HUGE EXPLOSION .. and he became a fireball. Luckily there's a pond 12 yards away, and he jumped into it .. alive, but in the hospital for months with 17 very painful skin-grafts. He wrote his near-death-experience and time in hell (after death) in the below Amazon book-on-line. Just click on the book and Amazon shows the first few pages of the book, where he landed in hell after death. He's an assistant principal at an elementary school. http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Real-Too-Death-Experience-ebook/dp/B018UYNQCG/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460265353&sr=1-9&keywords=hell#reader_B018UYNQCG There's another sad & true story of a teenager boy was chopping wood with a chain-saw, he ran out of gas, and it's freezing cold outside, so he brought the gas can down the basement to re-fill his chain-saw, except there's a furnace down the basement (with flame inside) .. the entire basement exploded, killing the boy. Another near-death experience involved a man came back to his old house on sale .. the water was turned off, so he could not wash his hands after spraying a wasp-nest with wasp-spray. He got some wasp-spray on his hands, was hungry so he ate his sandwich, noticed a strange taste .. he got ill, and was in a coma & had a near-death-experience (went to heaven) then hospitalized for 6 months before he could walk again.