Hi!

We planted our Golden Celebrations some time between 1994 and 1996.
It's likely that there are several factors going on with your plants.

1. Give every rose about 3 years to mature as a plant.
Some take even longer.
Until they get there, they will not have the size, or the bloom size
of a mature bush.

2. These plants are probably growing on their own roots.
That's A GOOD THING --
BUT it also means that the roses may take a little longer to mature
than a budded plant might have.

3. It is summer, and it is HOT over much of the U.S.
In hot summer weather, even mature plants will produce smaller blooms
than those you'd see in more moderate temperatures.
(My own Golden Celebrations, LONG mature plants, have finished a flush
of bloom, and are "resting.")

4. If you bought these roses in spring, growing in containers, with
lots of bloom, they were probably pushed hard to bloom prolifically,
BEFORE they had grown enough roots to support all that.

My recommendation, right now, would be to continue to water these plants,
but to give them NO FERTILIZERS for a while.
They need to grow some roots, before they can bloom generously.

Jeri

Did you soak the peat pots to saturation and poke holes in them or remove the plants from the pots before planting?
If not the roots may be confined to the pots.
These pots do not decompose quickly if not prepared properly prior to being planted. Mine will usually be gone by the end of the first season but most report them still whole after a couple of years.
The special water soluble fertilizers, metered to the roots so that nothing is wasted and maximum growth is obtained in a very short time and the ideal growing conditions these plants receive in heated greenhouses make for large blooms on attractive plants. This makes them sell better but results in slower cycling and smaller blooms when they enter the real world.
Excvessive heat and the hot sun typical in your area in the summer forces the buds to mature and open sooner so they don't get as large as they would under cooler less sunny conditions. Many commercial growers use shade cloth and/or high powered fans to keep conditions such that they allow the buds to develop longer, thus they are larger.
Heavy use of pesticides keep disease and insect pressure at a minimum.
Then you buy this coddled plant and suddenly it's forced to survive in the real world.
You should read the material available to the plant industry listing the products and advice given to growers to maximize bloom size to make an attractive plant.
Having attended large winter horticultural supplier shows, I'm on many grower mailing lists and privy to much of this information.
I don't wonder why plants often don't do well after purchase but why they do as well as they do.

I don't wonder why plants often don't do well after purchase but why they do as well as they do.

*** Yup.
There is a MAJOR wholesale grower in my area. They buy plants bare root, from
everyone from Weeks to J&P, to Hortico.
They pot them up in 5-G, shortening the roots so that they will fit the pots.
Then they fertilize them like mad, to bring them up to mass bloom in April.
It's a pretty spectacular sight, but we learned that it will take those roses
an entire extra year to recover from their fertilizer "high."

I can buy 4 small own-roots for the price of ONE of those refugees from
"La Dame aux Camélias," and the time to maturity is about the same.

Jeri

Thanks for the great words of advice and encouragement. I did remove them from the pots before planting. I will ease up on the fertilizer and be patient. This is my first try with English Roses. I have about 10 Hybrid Teas that do very well.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Rose Blog

Well, sp'ed mine after the 3rd year (I agree 3 isn't always enough). Mine wasn't a good repeat bloom either, and balled or fell apart terribly after a rain. The final straw came the 1st day it was covered with blooms and that afternoon we had a down pour. Every bloom was gone and I wasn't going to wait another whole season for the next flush.