I have ordered a Don Juan bare-root this fall;I, too,would be very interested t hear people's thoughts on this rose. I read somewhere that it is rather slow to start,so was thinking about planting it in a pot for it's first year.Hrose's plant looks and sounds great, but it's clearly been in a pot for a while,so we don't know how old it actually is...bart

my Don Juan is only about 6 months old I bought it from Lowes store early spring

I got 2 bare root from Jackon Perkins last spring. Here they are now! I had huge blooms this summer. It's Nov 1st and there are 5 buds still waiting to open. I'm in indianapolis, zone 5b. My trellis is 5 ft tall.

Beautiful fragrant rose. Does not reach it 's full potential in my zone 5 garden. He is a mannerly climber in a protected spot. Big beautiful fragrant blooms. Good repeat. Smidge of BS, but otherwise very healthy. My favorite rose and I am not a huge fan of reds. Floppy in a vase.

Another view. Blossom medium to large. Much deeper red in personEdges blacken with age. But a true red!

He's not going to be happy in that pot much longer and will certainly never come to his full potential in a pot.

Just thinking the same thing. And is that inside? If it is, it is too soon.

Well,from jill wingett's post, I gather that a nice, robust bare-root Don Juan is NOT a particularly slow grower! How did you treat yours, jill? I'm asking because I have a particular situation. My garden is far from my home,and there is no running water, so all of my roses have to learn quickly to be drought-tolerant. Even my new implants only get watered occaisionally. For the most part, they tend to do pretty well,but I am beginning to see that some roses -ones that are slower to establish, maybe?-might be better off in a pot at my house for their first year, where I can water them regularly. Here in Tuscany, Italy,it's the summer heat and drought that is the greatest challenge for roses, not the winter. bart

Bart, like you, I'm not as good at watering as I should be! Once a week my roses get an inch to an inch & a half of water if it doesn't rain.I fertilized with Rose Tone when planted & again the beginning of June. I did spray every couple of weeks with Bayer Advanced. Most of the rain we got this summer seemed to be at night & all my roses had more black spot than ever before. But that's it, nothing fancy or complicated.

I find DJ to be sensitive to cold, even in my zone. I am on my 3rd one. This one is bare root and it's been slow to take off but I am getting blooms on it. Great bloom form and fragrance. Not disease resistant though.

And mine is 10 years old ! In Chicago. Now that I bragged about him, he will surely die.

No, Susan! Nothing you said sounded braggy to me;I don't think you messed up your D.Juan's karma, lol. I bet it'll continue to be fine, and I appreciate your comments and photos.bart

as long as its loaded with regular sized blooms at least a couple of times a year i'll be happy

I don't expect it to grow sky high in a planter

i'll probably have to root prune it sooner or later

This post was edited by Hrose on Sun, Nov 3, 13 at 12:14

If you are gonna keep it in a pot, I would suggest getting a bigger one.

I love my Don Juan, it has been in the ground 4 years and is 15 feet tall. It got a lot happier when I put it on a iron Trellis and started bending it back and forth. Fertilize and water it during the summer and it will bloom its head off.

Easily one of my favorite rose bushes.

bigger planter really? I have a 7 feet high 5 feet wide ficus tree in a planter half the size of this one and its doing fine

This post was edited by Hrose on Wed, Nov 6, 13 at 18:28

Potted roses stop blooming or decrease size and frequency when they need to be potted UP. At this point you can root prune and repot when u see a decrease in blossoms.
And at this time can also check for soil compaction.

It's lovely but I agree with most that it really will need a bigger pot, or planting in the ground, for next year. I'm really impressed at how tall it got for you in just one season! Most climbers take a few years to really start to climb. I wish you much continued success with it!

If that was mine, I would bring it down when pruning next spring. You might see more blooming activity. Your canes look so robust. You have a nice healthy plant. Sleeps, creeps, leaps!

thanks Susan : ) and everyone's else for their response

i also had good luck with my white climber (in ground) i planted last year

the picture is from this years spring it put out a few more canes this year even longer then before

This post was edited by Hrose on Thu, Nov 7, 13 at 18:22

THAT is totally pretty. What is it?

Ilse Krohn Superior there it is beside my berolina rose

and here is my don juan rose when it was smaller the one to the left in the middle one of my ficus tress and the rose on the right side is my Ingrid Bergman hybrid tea rose

I was a little disappointed with the Ingrid Bergman rose the blooms didn't open properly like the ones on google images the blooms looked more like a floribunda rose and it wasn't velvety not really dark either...it was its first year maybe next year it will be better

This post was edited by Hrose on Thu, Nov 7, 13 at 22:08

Beauties!

Susan, Fellow (just outside of) Chicagoan, the reason I'm looking at this page is my New Dawn died to the ground and I want to try the Don Juan. I will but I am pretty sure you got some pretty good die back this winter? It was a rough one.

Just came upon this thread, although I know it's been around for a while. I bought a DJ bare-root in a body bag in January and planted him near other roses in my front garden. He's about 2 1/2 feet tall and has produced maybe four or five roses so far, and that's an optimistic guess. Yes, he has been watered, fed, sprayed but ... still a shrimp.
How come this guy won't grow in SoCal? All the other HTs I planted this year are three times his size.
Confused,
Sylvia

Climbers = Patience! Climbers can take YEARS to build up a significant enough root ball to be able to send water and nutrients up to the top of an 8, 10 or 12 foot cane. The saying is, First year sleep, second year creep, third year leap! But some may take a little less and others may take a little longer depending on the individual variety as well. If you just planted DJ this year you need to be more patient.

My DJ only blooms well in the heat! I have thought about giving his space to some other, but after about 10 yr..I probably won't

Seil, thanks for the sound advice. I'll try to be patient. It's never been easy LOL.
Sylvia

How did your Don Juan handle the cold?

I don't think Don Juan is a climber that particularly likes the cold. Obviously Hrose and Seil are successful with theirs in zone 6, but in my zone 5 Don Juan is one that has failed to overwinter for me at least twice. It wasn't in a prime spot, but I'd be leery about it in the Chicago area unless you can give it a nice protected location. If climbers survive but need to be pruned to the ground each winter, you never really get a chance for the kind of blooming you want for a climber.

In contrast, Dublin Bay has done consistently well for me and even survived with some cane over the winter. It's not the ridiculously hardy rose like Quadra or Ramblin Red or Illusion, but it has the more classic red rose shape and seems to survive well. Fields of the Wood is also a good survivor, and there's some speculation that this found rose is the same as another named survivor (either Rhode Island Red or Ramblin Red). Either way, I think there are probably some more reliable red climbers for zone 5 than Don Juan.

Just my experience with this rose in Nebraska.

Cynthia

On his second flush. Had to cut way down due to winter kill, but he has bounced back with many blooms. Not quite as vigorous as last years but at least he lived! Love this rose so much, bought a backup!

This post was edited by susan4952 on Tue, Jul 22, 14 at 17:59

Hope he regains some height as summer goes on.

Cool, Susan - great photo! Just goes to show there's variability even within the same numerical zone. Hope the good Don puts on some extra cane and keeps it for you next year!

Cynthia

After the awful winter we all had he looks marvelous!!! It will probably set him back a year for climbing but he'll soon catch up.