Yes, when they are dormant is a good time to transplant them. You still don't want to disturb the root ball. Keep it as intact as possible when you transplant them. Then keep them well watered and wait to fertilize until they start to leaf out.

I will shamelessly hijack this thread! lol) We have 2 climbers in containers which I plan to plant in the ground. I have done it in the past and am familiar with the procedure. However, my concern is about the weather. With the warm weather here in NY, everything including bees, hornets, mosquitoes etc. is confused. The roses are blooming, 4-6 weeks before time. The question is: if I transplant a couple of bushes, and plant the container roses (which were protected during the winter), what happens in case snow and freezing temperatures return? Will they survive?

Yes, I noticed this afterward, Jackie. Look, I went through something like this with a yellow banksia. My R. banksia lutea was a gift from an older lady who was moving from her home of many decades. Her banksia had been a gift from an older lady, long before, and she wanted to take it with her, so they dug the thing out of the ground. She gave us half of it. When they gave it to us, it was an enormous STUMP with truncated roots, bundled into a trash bag. We planted it with some misgivings, and it sat there as a stump with a few green leaves for almost three years. It was alive, so we kept watering it, and waited. When it had grown enough roots, it took off like a rocket ship, jumped a 7-ft fence, leaped into a nearby tree, roared up to the top of the tree, and began to wave its spring bloom around, 6 ft. above the tree. We just had to be patient. The rose knew what it was doing. But I don't think it's going to need spraying. I think it's pretty disease-free, everywhere I've seen it in TX.

Hi, fellow Aussie! You know, here in Australia, rosemary can grow into quite a large shrub. I mean, almost as tall as you are and several times wider (unless you resemble the side of a barn!). And your rosemary has a LONG way to go to get to maturity. So I honestly can't think of any other plant that would suit in a pot, even a large pot. Even prostrate rosemary can get quite large. You need to think of what's under the ground, and usually it's about the same size as the above-ground bits, so that should give you some idea. Rosemary likes full sun, as much as it can get, and it can take the hottest of hottest heat, even our Aussie summer afternoon sun. The more the better! It absolutely will not tolerate constantly wet feet, but it can take quite a lot of water (like the torrential rain it should get here in Sunny Queensland) as long as the excess can drain away quickly. The older the plant gets, the more drought-tolerant it will be, however. A potted plant will always want more water than one planted in the garden - a pot provides only limited resources. You plant should tolerate a double-move - just make sure to take as much of the soil around the roots as you can when you move it - ie don't disturb the roots more than absolutely necessary. Rosemary is pretty tough. Especially now it's spring here, it's not a bad time to transplant. Don't put oregano and rosemary together in a pot. The oregano will just take over (it grows up as well as down!), and it likes a bit more water than rosemary. You could possibly try a native non-herb like one of the brachychitons, but I don't know much about those. One of the matting thymes just might be OK, but they also prefer more water than rosemary. The Orange Peel thyme would be a nice colour-contrast, and it's worth a try. You'll know soon enough if the combination works! OP thyme likes less water than some of the others. However, most thymes prefer to grow upwards and sideways instead of downwards. Don't worry about sand. Just use a good quality potting mix, and as the level of soil in the pot shrinks, top it up with more, perhaps with a handful or two of compost or you can use pellets called 5-in-1, which are a soil-conditioning mixture. Not too much - rosemary likes a poor soil best. If you're worried about drainage, put your pot up on feet, and before potting, make sure there are several drainage holes in the bottom - one in the centre is simply not enough. Rosemary is a wonderful plant for topiarising - just don't remove more than one-third of total growth at any one time.