It's SOOOO..... hard to wait, but I feel if you do, you will be glad you did. Hot, miserable weather is just around the corner, and roses with small root sytems struggle with the summer stress, even if irrigated every day. Sometimes they never get over it. I've tried all sorts of things, and the roses I left in pots until they filled out at least a 2 gallon pot (3 gallon is better) have become fabulous bushes. If you can be patient, it would be wise to get the bed prepped now, and top it all with a nice layer of mulch, unless you are going to plant some "temporary" flowers first. What you can then do is either sink the pots in the ground a little bit, or put bricks down for your pots to sit on. I bought cheap pavers from Home Depot to set my pots on. The air circulates better. That way the roses can grow a good root system, and you can move the pots around in the area you want to plant them to get a feel for what arrangement pleases you. Sandy

We have had temps in the 50-60's and one day 73., but at night the temps are in the 30's to high 20's. I have kept my roses in pots outside all winter and I just cannot believe the new growth that I have on them, and even the ones in the ground have leaf buds about an inch long growing from the canes. It is really scaring me because we are only in the second week of March, is this unusual cause I don't remember last year having this much growth this soon, its maddening! I just hope the temps don't drop too low. Kate, that cover sounds like it would work good, do you know where your friend purchased it?

Lynn....... I think you are making the overwintering of these roses too hard. I know you are a planner, but sometimes you just have to wing it. I started my rose life in San Diego and was given the same advice as above. San Diego is also considered to be Rose Heaven. Note the ARS giving that advice in San Diego gave that timing so that the first flush of perfect roses would be ready for the rose shows in early April. It takes about six to seven weeks for a rose once it has set bud to bloom, so if your timing is early April you work back from there. You do not have to follow that timing if you are not worried about having roses ready for a show, but are just growing roses for your garden and don't need perfect roses, but need healthy roses. Cooperative Extensions and Master Gardeners have been parroting the advice given by the local rose societies for more than 60 years. That's because they do not specialize in roses and figure the ARS must know what should be done for their care. In San Diego, we stopped dead heading our roses in October and then began our pruning in December to be completed by Valentine's Day, so that they would be ready to show. My experience and personal opinion is that you stop deadheading in October, allow the rose to set seed and then the rose will go as dormant as nature will allow that rose to go dormant. When we dead head, we are interrupting the plant's natural cycle of getting pollenated and then setting seed, which stimulates the rose to re-bloom. If you don't dead head, the plant will complete it's natural cycle and rest. There is no need for dormant sprays unless you have a serious disease problem or unless you want perfect foliage for a rose show. I believe in leaving the leaves because the rose will abandon them when they no longer perform the function needed for the rose. Studies show that the photosynthesis process stops when temps reach around the 70 degree level. So you can take them off or not. I think they provide a larger mass for the top growth and leaving them on helps protect the canes from the colder temps. Cluster your pots on your patio and surround them with bags of leaves or mulch and stuff the same material in the gaps between the pots to make a bigger mass and to protect the outside pots from the colder temps and to keep the temps within the mass as constant as possible. If you feel you need to protect the top growth from freezing temps, you can cover them just as farmers do with their crops. These are small roses, they don't need to be pruned for the first year except to clean out the rose and shape it. (Note: I don't even shape the rose until it's been in the ground for at least two seasons, but I live where temps get colder.) You want it to grow out of those gallon cans, so you might as well just let it grow. Cutting them back/pruning them when they are small just slows down that process because the roses are storing nutrients in their canes. I now live in a climate with temps lower than you have reported. I over-wintered roses outside for six years in containers before I got them all planted. None of them died. I should have replaced the soil in those pots, but I was too busy digging rose holes in rock. I had to over winter the pots in a totally unprotected yard and I did not go out in the rain or snow to cover them. I also had to maintain those roses in direct sunlight in high temps that lasted for months. The key to my success was the larger mass. Not taking off leaves, spraying or taking off leaves. It kept the temperatures and moisture more consistent. In my best year, I could only get about twenty out of over one hundred roses planted. The only thing you need to do differently than I have done, is to make sure the pots don't dry out while they are resting on the patio. I've been told watering once a month is sufficient, but it doesn't hurt to check and see if you need to do it more often in your climate. Once I got them in the ground, they my roses took off even better than I expected because they finally had a chance to spread their roots. So your choice is to go by the book or wing it. Smiles, Lyn PS ... this rose, 'Kim Rupert', looked horrid in the pot, this is how it looked the first year I got it in the ground.

We are hardiness zone 7 but typically our lows are in the 20 or 30s for most of the winter. Yes I leave them out no matter what and as long as they are on pot feet or something so the water can drain as they freeze and thaw they are fine. The shop I got them from taught me to do it that way and it works for me. I have a few more totally under snow right now lol. In these huge pots I usually put some branches in the bottom then I use mainly G an B Organics Rose and Flower soil mix along with random other soil mixes I have on hand.