Most of my roses are in containers forever because of tree roots. My shrub roses and floribundas that are 3 to 4" when mature live in pots 20"dia x 18"deep. I am in a warmer zone than you so I do not have to move pots in for the winter. But from reading other threads about roses in containers there are people in your zone and colder that do and they will be able to give you good pointers.

Liz

You can absolutely grow a healthy rose in a pot, provided you make the right environment.

See my previous posts for my recommendations.

jeffcat

Another forum where you can get so really great info on growing plants in containers is the Container Forum here on the GW. They have great information on mixing your own potting mix amoung other things.

Liz

Your house is much too warm. Look around for somewhere that stays around freezing - say 20°F to 40°F.

The other thing is that you are into large enough pots that pot size is potentially an issue. If a local nursery has half barrel planters, try 'accidentally' moving one around. That's the territory you are going to have to be in.

you can place the pots on casters so that you can roll them into the garage in during the coldest times.

Moving them around isn't much of an issue as long as I can grab the pots. I was considering one of those very large plastic pots that people typically plant smaller house palms into. I believe they are around 24" or so.

If I let the rose die first, then leave it inside in a 55 degree room, will it just try to break back out? I had a mini last year that did fine using the same methods, but I know minis are less tempermental and hardy than most roses. I don't have a garage, so I could potentially leave it in a room and block it off and keep it around 40 or so consistently or put it outside.

Yep, 55 is more than warm enough to bring the rose back out of dormancy. My garaged roses usually start breaking dormancy once temperatures are consistently above about 50. Keeping it around 40 may not even be cold enough. Ideally, the storage temperature should be between about 30 and 35. From experience, the upper limit is much, much more important than the lower one since once the rose breaks dormancy, the rules all change.

Basically, my 'rule of thumb' is the place has to be somewhere that occasionally freezes or it isn't cold enough. That doesn't apply to many places inside a remotely normal modern-built house. Sometimes people with older houses have so many airleaks in a dry-laid foundation that their basement routinely freezes, but usually it's some sort of space like a garage, breezeway, or 3-season porch.

Actually, I completely forgot about my basement....as I never use it. The home is a very old 1911 Edwardian home with a lot of leaks so it would stay plenty cold down there. I know you should have less light during the winter, but should I occasionally bring the roses up to get a little light on them......even though there are no leaves for photosynthesis or are they perfectly fine just sitting in the dark basement all winter?

Dormant roses don't need any light. That's actually one of the benefits of keeping them dormant. They aren't producing weak, light starved growth during the dark winter. Keeping them dark will also help keep them dormant if temperatures are marginal.

I'd be somewhat skeptical about the basement unless you know the house has had problems with frozen pipes.

Unfortunately...my basement will probably work as the pipes do tend to freeze around winter.

I know most people grow small to medium Austins, but what is the feasibility of growing a larger one such as Evelyn in a pot or am I simply dreaming?

jeffcat

You may be able to grow large roses such as Evelyn in very large containers. I frequent the Beales Rose forum and some of the poster even have small climbers in pots with success. I myself have the Kordes rose Caramella in a large pot. This is year 4 for it so I do need to get it out of the pot this winter to repot, root trim, and prune.

heck on the container forum some people grow trees in pots.

Liz

My largest pot contains Mutabilis.

Now you just have to figure out how to get the pots up and down the steps.

OK, just checking the feasibility of it. That expands my list of possible potted Austin choices(oh the dilemma).

If the pot is too large, I might have a hard time getting it down in the basement as the basement has a narrow door opening and real large pots probably wouldn't make it. If that would be the case, how could I leave the pots outside and have them survive? I was thinking of putting the pots in a sunny location that is beside a fence to block the wind, then wrap the dormant rose in burlap as well...or do the chicken wire routine around the exterior of the pot and fill it with oak leaves, then occasionally water at soil level to keep the soil moist. If there were exceptionally cold days/nights, then I could bring the pots in the house overnight.

rosesnpots.....Thank you for your email. I much appreciated the suggestions from before. I've seen full size trees growing in pots at my local nursery...quite a site to behold. They are usually large japanese maples that cost about 12K. :o

jeffcat

As my rose mentor has said to me many times, it is the biting cold wind that can do the most damage. Your protection proposal make sense. In a large say 22" dia or bigger pot I would think the roots should be pretty well protected.
This winter we had below 30F temps for almost 2 weeks and at the soil froze in my pots. Of course I had no way to tell how extensive the freezing was. But I did not loose any of them.

Liz

Yes, my garage has had temperatures of below 30 for a couple of weeks, and I don't tend to lose things there either.

OTOH, outside can get about 40° colder than that, easily.

I lost every potted rose that I had last year, over winter. On the other hand, I only lost two that were in the ground, and those were not expected to be hardy.

jeffcat, can you plant them? If so, that would be best and they likely would thrive even in your cold winters.

Unfortunately, I can't plant anymore due to my lack of land and allowance from my property manager. I did some landscaping for them and added some Austin roses, but they don't want anymore than what they planned for, so I have to use pots. I may actually jump on this early and get some own roots from RU if they still have ones I am interested in.

I went to my local nursery today and they had 17,20, and 24 inch plastic pots. I'm assuming larger is obviously better, but is there really any necessity in getting a large one over a 17 or 20 inch? It's mostly a money saving issue.

I'm already scheming up an idea to box of the roses in with chicken wire and fill them with leaves, then direct ventilation from my dryer vent into the roses over winter, plus whatever additional aid they may get from being halfway covered along the house.

jeffcat

Because I have so many in pots, I also use the plastic ones. I got mine from Lowes, the military PX, and Biglots. The biggest I use is 20". If you have Biglots where you live, check them out in early spring, their big 20" pots this year were only $9 each. Of course who knows what they will have next year. I think Lowes were about $15 each. I had 2 from Homedepot but they fell apart after one year, so I will never get thoses again.

Liz

Jeffcat - I also have several roses in containers which I tried to winter-over. I had about six which I kept under my wooden flower bench in an attached greenhouse which was only heated with two heatlamps. We had several below freezing nights. I kept the upper plants surrounded with insulation material with the lights directly over. Anyway, the three potted plants which were by the back door of the greenhouse did not make it through the winter. The other three or four were okay. I will have to further insulate around that back door. One of those were Fragrant Cloud which is a HT and which I have had planted outside for two or three years in the ground. That one didn't make it either, so this was a bad freezing and thawing year with bad winds. Just comments to help your thinking. One year I kept several in an unheated small barn and lost them all. - Barb

Thanks roses. I figured Lowe's would probably have the same pots at a lower price, but I didn't stop by there yet or big lots. I'll have to check them out.

Barb, thanks for your experiences. I know the winters in our area can be a typical 20 degree winter on some days with snow, and other days it can be 20 below with nothing more than a dry 35mph wind roaring around that just beats up and dries the roses out. I'm hoping for the best. One other method I have thought about is a rather crude one. Esssentially you take 2 boxes with one being slightly smaller than the other and and place newspaper between the two boxes and cover the exterior in aluminum foil.....this goes to show the extent that all of us in the harsher environments have to experiment towards just the survival of our roses haha.

If you are getting the roses from some where like RU, just pot them up to the next size when they are ready. They go into shelter in the pot they happen to be in. Don't put them directly into very large pots because they can't manage the moisture level in too much space.

The problem with overwintering marginal roses in unheated space is that plants are killed by too low temperatures and nothing else. If the space gets too cold for the rose - bash bing splat - end of rose. Insulation and wind protection do not, in and of themselves, provide heat. The point to storage spaces adjacent to houses is that the houses leak heat, which moderates the temperature extremes in the spaces.

Thanks gallica, I will take your advice and start with smaller pots.

What kind of soil types do you use? For my potted mini, I was cheap and just used a bag of scott's top soil. The mini flourishes in it, but the mini would probably still flourish if I SPed it and threw it in the garbage. The soil hardens like glue, so I was wondering what mixtures you use to provide a more looser, water absorbent soil. I'm assuming you mix in decent amounts of peat moss, but I'm new to the potted roses deal aside from my super tough mini.

I have a beautiful Dream Rose in a nice big 5 gallon pot and it seems very happy. I potted it in a mix of peat moss and top soil with bonemeal mixed in. I also have a mini and mini cutting in the same mix and they are growing like crazy. This is my first year growing roses and I am HOOKED.

This past winter was my first winter in a cold zone. Up here in the N. GA. Mts it gets cold. (The movie "Cold Mountain" was filmed in this area.) I brought 23 new roses with me when I moved from SE FL. last Sept. Everything was in 3 gal pots. The old lady living next door to me has 3 old HT's in 25 gal. pots in front of her porch. She showed me how to winter protect everything. It worked like a charm. 5' wood stakes, burlap and chicken wire. Put the stakes up around the pots in a square staying about 18" from the pots. Wrap the burlap once around the entire area using a staple gun to keep the burlap in place. Then put the chicken wire around the burlap using the staple gun. Then pack everything with fall leafs. When she gets up to about 4' she puts a layer of news paper on top of everythig, going around all the canes that are still sticking up. Then she finish's everything off with leafs. In mid March she takes everything down and spreds the leafs through her bulb garden (where her roses are), prunes everything up and bingo! Mr. Lincoln, Double Delight and Peace have been stunning all spring and summer. Mine, being in 3 gal pots I did just a little different. Packed all the pots together, covered everything with leafs, threw a layer burlap on everything and put more leafs on top of that . I didn't loose a single rose under this protection and all my roses are on cold sensative fortuniana root stock. And yes, several mornings at 5 degrees and a steady 20 mph wind is fair chilly. Many,many days we never saw anything above 25 drgrees. So I know with proper protection, roses in pots can survive a cold winter.

Thanks Ken. I am probably going to do something similar if the basement doesn't work out. Probably just take all the pots and leave them together and chicken wire around the group of pots and fill them with oak leaves.

What exactly are the downsides of having the rose not stay dormant? I only ask because people in the far south and california tend to get temps consistently in the 40s where it might fluctuate to borderline freezing and kill of the rose for the "winter" yet it still maintains a 40ish degree temperature and their roses seem to do alright.

You can even grow healthy roses in containers, if you dont know what you are doing :) (ie: ME when I first potted up a couple of Mr. Lincoln's) that was about 4 years ago and they are the healthiest roses I have. I have many others in the ground that always seem to get BS and drop all their leaves. And in the summer it is so hot that it's really a challenge to get everything watered well (I'm still planning on a drip system out where the roses live, but just have not got it done).

I'm actually in the process myself of potting up some roses that I just got. and repotting the older ones into fresh containers.

I also made the mistake with these first few in pots, to put other stuff in them with to make them look prettier (ie:ivy) big mistake. The ivy will be removed as carefully as I can when I give the roses their new homes.

Jeffcat, this is what happens when they don't go dormant.
They have all recovered and are thriving now but I learned a lesson the hard way. I thought it was because it was too warm down there but realized from the people here that I didn't let them go dormant first.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Good luck, Donna
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Ok, I realize you leave container roses outside until they go dormant.

At what temps does it start getting dangerous for container roses to remain outside??? (Ours is a own-root potted miniature rose, baby band just planted July 29, 2009)

JIM