Yes, you can keep them for one year or even two. If you come in some nursery and look at old roses section, you'll find there plants more than 2 years old, looking great, but because they're not popular today and no one is buying them, that's why they stay there for 2 years. If you're smart, you'll just grab them asap, but in your case, yes, this confirms: put your new roses in larger pots and they'll be ok. They can't develop because they won't have enough space to accommodate their roots properly. But once they hit the rosebed, they'll grow like crazy. - Tom

Tom, thanks for that, she'll be sweet. Janine

Re: Bare rooted climbers in pots. Or any other roses for that matter. Yes you can do it, in fact it works well. A decent sized pot so you can get then bud union down close to the soil level (not under it though) and a good potting mix with some added old horse manure and they will thrive. How do I know? Because that is what I did when we were building our house and I was starting to get plants together for our new garden. I bought up as many as I could afford when the shops had their barerooted stock in in winter, all the old favourites and what I call the bread and butter varieties plus a good range of David Austins. During the hottest part of the summer I shifted them so they were shielded from the fiercest part of the afternoon heat, mainly so their new young roots didn't cook and when the weather cooled I shifted them back out into the open. They were fertilised regularly (weekly) with liquid fertiliser, (pots don't have much room for much manure top dressing and I don't trust granular fertilisers and new roses in pots) and because they were all in fairly close proximity kept up a regular spray routine. They flowered well and I pruned them as normal when it was time. Then end result was, when the house was finished and we moved in in the April, as soon as the rains came I had about 120 nice strong bushes to plant out and start to form the frame work for my garden. Types included were H.T's, Floribundas, mini's, D.A.'s, the climber's and rambler's and heritage roses. I can't say that any one type stood out as not doing as well as the rest. Best Wishes, New gardens are a lot of hard work but worth it in the end.
Rosalie

Yes I too have had roses sitting around in pots, (sometimes for several years), whilst they waited for a permanent home. Would I do it again? No.
Roses in pots are cumbersome creatures. Thorns, large pots, and lots of potting soil make them awkward to move. You can't put them close together because of the risk of disease, and you can't leave them out in the baking sun because in pots their roots can easily dry out. They won't like being in the shade either. As Tom said, roses, especially climbing ones, can't really develop properly in pots but will grow like crazy once in the ground. So you have to ask yourself, what is to be gained by keeping them in pots, when you could just wait until the ground is ready and buy them then?
Spend the money and energy on improving the soil, your roses will thank you and you'll avoid making life more difficult for yourself in the process.

Thanks Wattleblossom - I see what you mean; I will only pot up those which I am unsure about with regard to their final location due to landscaping that's unfinished. This weekend I bought a couple of 30 kg bags of smelly farmyard manure to start off improving the soil..will probably need more but it drives my dog crazy if I leave too much of it lying around ! One of the bags has an added soil conditioner to break down heavy clay soils (which we need on our block) so I am hoping this will be okay.
Janine