I too grow alot of roses in large pots and my roses started doing the same thing as yours are doing, someone suggested that I should start feeding them once a week instead of once a month like I was doing. So now I feed about 1/4 streath of Mill's Easy Feed once a week and it did make a differance. About once a month I really flush them out good to help with the salts build up. Hope this might help.
Harold

Check out these two posts from the container gardening forum.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg1020215928898.html?151#post

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg0323131520631.html?101

These have helped me realize how fertilizer works and how to make it best available for my roses. I think it might help you out. Sorry they are not active links, I could only figure uot how to put one in a post, not multiples. Easy enough to copy and paste though.

Thanks Harold for your suggestion. I usually feed my roses monthly with rose pellets. But one thing I haven't checked is the pH of the soil(potting mix). So hopefully, this weekend I should check it out... btw, do you change the size of your pots?

Those links are great! Thanks particentral for those links. I've booked marked it and I'm going to read it tomorrow.

Good night everyone! :)

It looks like your pots are sitting directly on the hardscape. This will impact drainage and that impacts the performance of the plant. Also, poor drainage allows a build up of salts from the fertilizers you use. You don't need to buy expensive "pot feet" to lift the pot. Anything will do that allows the pot to drain properly.

It also looks like the pots you are using are too small for the roses you are growing. Since the soil for container roses should be replaced every few years, you can confirm this when you re-pot your roses. Looking at the roots often tells you more about what's going on with a container rose than the top growth.

Lyn

Well, looking at your pots, I would say that they are too small. I have 13 roses in pots and I purchase the large 22 - 24 inch pots from Costco each year. Also, I only grow 2 to 3 footers and nothing that gets larger. Hybrid teas tend to not do well for me in pots at all, but the shrubs, Austins, etc. do well, some I've had in a pot for 7 years and they perform wonderfully. I do make sure that the drainage is good, fertilize and water regularly. Good Luck! CJ

Yep, those pots are too small, and the plants are probably getting root bound. You going to have to move them up to larger homes. Some people take the plants out and trim the roots, but I just move them up.

I didn't have luck with roses in pots, either. It's too dry here. They just dry out too fast. The only plants I've kept relatively happy in pots are Agaves and Echeverias, and even then they do better in the ground.

I think potted roses are happier in cooler climates, where the potting soil will be a bit warmer than the cold soil, or climates with summer rain...being higher above the humid fungus-y soil there probably helps them, and the summer rain keeps them moist.

As some of the other posters stated, it does look like your pots are too small for the size rose you are growing. I have no problem with my roses blooming even in their first year but the trick is a big enough pot with good potting mix and drainage.

I use pots that hold 1 to 2 cubic ft of potting mix depending on the mature size of the rose. I feed once a month with an organic fertilizer.

The other thing to remember is if a rose stops performing but looks good otherwise, it usually means the rose need a bigger pot and/or fresh potting mix (I repot mature roses about every 3 years and root prune them at the same time).

the links provided in the earlier post will really help especially with drainage and soil issues.

Liz

Thank you all for your suggestions...

I think it will be very expensive if I have to replaced those pots again.

The pot that I used for Tea Clipper is 45cm (22inches). That's the largest I could find at K-mart and it cost me $20 dollars.

See how it goes. I've just fertilised my roses again.
If they're not performing well, I will plant them straight into the ground. Hopefully I don't need to because I'm renting, and if I happened to move again, I really want to bring all my roses with me.

Growing roses as a hobby is not cheap after all.

I'm really curious how David Austin and other rose growers are able to grow really tall climbing rose in a very small pot and still looking healthy - as seen in the Chelsea Flowering Show.

"I'm really curious how David Austin and other rose growers are able to grow really tall climbing rose in a very small pot and still looking healthy - as seen in the Chelsea Flowering Show"

I moved to a very small garden from a large one quite recently and had to suddenly take interest in containers rather than the open ground.

The general consensus seems to be that roses grow best in the ground but small varieties can be grown in containers and medium to moderately large varieties need to be grown in large containers or barrels.

However, this constraint seems to be of little concern to Robert Mattock Roses (UK) who supply instant mature rose gardens to flower show exhibitors (Chelsea) and film and tv sets. For practical reasons relating to space and transportation, roses are grown in 10 litre pots. In short, the method seems to be to train the rose to grow in confined space by discouraging it from forming large tap roots at the expense of feeding roots by root pruning - and to use a potting mix which will fully sustain the rose - without breaking down - for the entire interval between soil change and tap root shortening (1-2years). From this one can reasonably conclude that there should be even less trouble growing roses in 5 gallon containers with a bit of tap root pruning, the correct potting mix and feeding/watering regime.

I have kept my roses in pots and they are all doing well but it takes more work. You need to feed them more, water them more and you do need to get larger pots sometimes too. I only keep shrub roses, I cut them down so they do not grow very tall. Also, you can cut back the roots when you replace the soil (Every 2-3 yrs). Drainage is very important and I like to deep water my roses at least once a week in summer and I check the soil every morning and water accordingly.

On another note, I put a handfull of worms into 2 of my pots and those two roses seem a little perkier than the others so not sure how much the worms help but I have found that they do make a differance.

Mine do very well indeed. I've had roses in containers for years, including big ones and get plenty of blooms and most stay healthy. I water well and give them organic food. If one doesn't do well after two years, I replace it.

I was never overawed by the repeat bloom of most of the Austins I've grown in the past, but it had nothing to do with them being in ground or in pots. It was just the varity I picked. So you may want to check with locals in your climate to see how the repeat bloom is on the varieties you have selected. I do have one Austin that I'm very pleased with and it's Tamora. I've been growing it in a pot since 1990. It is now in a 20 inch pot and has been for about 3-4 years. Before that it was in a 16 inch pot for so long that I was finally shamed into moving it up one notch. I have grown lots of roses in pots over the years and think it is a perfectly acceptable way of growing roses IF you select the right variety and maintain proper pot culture.