Bands like gallon sized pots just fine. You could put them there if you just have some good dirt to put in the pots with them--a somewhat lighter weight duty for your orthopedic problems. Then after a couple of months and hopefully when the elbow is fully recovered, get them into the ground to give them time to prepare for winter.

We've not tried any cardboard here, but Gregg Lowery at Vintage Gardens especially recommends using cardboard and mulch. I can't remember whether or not he promised that it would kill all the grass if the mulch were heavy enough.

I was reading an excerpt from an organic gardening book about a grass-killing method to use with heavy clay. It used very thick stacks of newspaper (about one or one and a half inches thick, I think... probably cardboard would be the equivalent) with mulch and lots of layers of peat moss and compost on top of that--in other words, a really, really thick heavy thing that would totally wipe out the sun for the grass and provide good topsoil when you were ready to plant. I think you are supposed to wait for something like six months or so before planting, and then the grass won't come back. According to the author, your soil will be magically enriched with a ton of earthworms and will be much more friable for whatever you want to plant there. If you went that route, I guess you'd plant the rose in its own little hump of good dirt, and then surround it starting at a small distance away with the heavy stuff on cardboard that would end up being level with the dirt level of the rose by the time it decomposed a bit. (If you do try this and it works for you, then be sure to post about it! Take pictures too!)

Best wishes,
Mary

Yikes, Jackie, I'm sorry to hear about the tendonitis. I hope it gets better soon and you can go back to digging and weeding...

We moved to the PNW recently and I have put in new flower beds using the technique that Mary talks about. It is called "lasagna gardening." You can read about it in a book by Patricia Lanza or find information on the internet.

These are the beds in progress -

I marked out the bed areas and my dh helped me install the black plastic edging. I planted the bands I had ordered and then covered the area around the roses with cardboard and wet newspaper and then covered with mulch, manure, alfalfa, Milorganite and a sprinkling of synthetic fertilizer to help the mulch break down. The idea is that the cardboard smothers the grass underneath the mulch and the earthworms work the soil below into the rotting cardboard and the mulch above. I did all this in Feb-March. Now in June, most of the cardboard has rotted. We have had abundant rains so that has really helped everything rot quickly.

This is much more difficult if you have a bermuda grass lawn, as that is a very difficult grass to kill. If not the grass dies pretty quickly when covered.

Here are some of the finished beds, pics from a month or so ago.

The roses are finally starting to bloom now. good luck with your garden. Gean

I would keep them in 1 gallon pots until you are ready. Any larger and they might not do well in the pots. Your beds look beautiful. Good luck with the elbow. I had tendonitis in my ankle last fall/winter and I couldn't do anything :( It still bothers me I may have to get surgery.