Nope, we don't get much "fall" here, lol, but Oct - Dec is usually really nice weather... the horrible heat finally breaks and we have a chance to prep for "winter", ie, Jan & Feb! ;-) Thanks for the advice... I was thinking it wouldn't be a good idea to move it but was worried about the size of the pot. I did post the ? over on the Roses forum but haven't heard back from anyone yet... I'm sure I will shortly. I have no experience with roses at all - this little Knock Out was an impulse buy - and it amazed me how quickly it went from dormant to active when the weather warmed up last month... just a few days! I'd planned to move it into a much larger container during the "cold" (for SC, anyway!) weather but never got around to it... so much to do, so little time!

I would say yes, you can go ahead and repot your rose. Knockouts are shrubs and will take a lot. Have your new pot ready to go before you take the rose out of the old pot. Pot the rose and water well. In fact I just repotted 2 shrub roses for a friend of mine and they never skipped a beat. Liz

You are unlikely to kill them, but there will be less of a setback if you wait for dormancy. Late winter is probably the best time. The best time to plant the replacements is also late winter/early spring for bareroots and mid-spring for potted roses. If you act now you lose the fall flush on the old plants.

@Embothrium: "If there is overhead exposure to the sky with no trees involved the roses will grow in the shadow of the building next door." Does this mean in cases where there is almost 100% shade? At our latitude, the sun never gets directly overhead. At the peak of summer, say June-July I'm figuring I might get an hour or two of sun directly near my house, but in the other months, I doubt it will make it above the house next door, which is going to be quite tall. My experience is that if roses are starved for light, they use more energy in a growing season than they can replace, and so every year they grow smaller and more unhealthy. If you don't dig them out and give them away, sooner or later they'll be on the compost heap. Bradford pears I know nothing about, but I have the Plums from Hades in my backyard. If I didn't mow back there my whole backyard would be nothing but plum thicket. I should not be surprise to find them growing up through the floor of my bedroom This time of year the whole mass has to be surrounded by electric fence to keep the bears out of town. Too bad it doesn't keep the plum trees away.