Anyone bury rose pots in the ground ?

7 years ago

Hi ,

I am thinking of making holes in the bottoms of plastic pots and burying them in the ground for planting roses on Dr Huey root stock in FL to prevent sandy nematodes . but how big a pot should I choose ? which soil should I use ? thanks .

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kublakan

7 years ago

Okay, I did this a few years back. I, like you, had purchased quite a few roses from my local big box store and I had already had quite a few roses die. The experiment was simple, place all these roses that I had planted in 5-10 gallon pots (the black nursery variety) with good soil into the the ground, pots and all. At first it seemed like a good idea and I will say that for not knowing a thing about the other pillars of rose growing (feeding and spraying) they did fairly well for me...at first.

A few observations:

1.) The pots will affect drainage. I, like Ken, added more holes to my pots, but for some pots I went ahead and cut out the bottom completely. Short of doing the later, I would have drainage issues with the pots during the heavy rain season.

2.) Weeds became the dominant issue. In my yard there is little I can do to stop weeds. I've tried most everything and some things work better than others, but no matter what, I always get weeds. During my experiment I was working against a particularly evil crab grass that grows from small bulbs. The crab grass also has a tendency to run roots in every direction looking for a way out. To make matters even "better" it pokes out with a needle thin tip that has made it past commercial grade nursery ground cover. Well, that crab grass found the soil in the pots to be most agreeable and commenced to work its way into my pots through the drain holes. The result was grass that overtook the roses. When I would try to pull this grass out I'd end up pulling the whole pot out of the ground, severing any rose root growth that had made it out of the pots. After seeing several roses die like this I decided to pull one of the pots out and shake out the dirt to see what was going on inside the pots. The root system of this crab grass had overtaken the whole pot and outpaced the growth of the roses. Not good!

3.) When you have a rose die on you, it is fairly easy to start over. You pull from the base stem and, if the rose is good and dead, the remaining root system comes out and voila! Your soil is ready to be amended and a new hole is waiting for its creation. With pots, this is not the case. With time, soil around the pots begins to settle and create a suction that makes easy removal of the pots next to impossible. With many of the pots I ended up cutting or ruining them in order to excavate them. To this day, I still run into some of the pots I forgot to remove when I'm working a new garden.

My advice from a fair amount of experience:

If you have to plant that Dr. Huey root stocked rose in the ground, pot and all, cut the entire base of the pot. Later on, should you decided to remove the plant and pot, the job will be much easier given the lack of suction. Otherwise, try what I do. I grow the rose in a 5/7 gallon pot and then bump it to a ten gallon pot for about a year (keep it off of the dirt). Once you have established the rose bush into a healthy plant, transfer it into the ground in a large hole with plenty of new dirt. If you fall in love with this rose, take cuttings of it to someone like Geoff Coolidge (sp?) over at Cool Roses and ask him to graft it onto Fortuniana rootstock. The original will last you about three or more years, giving you enough time to start up its replacement. Then again, you could just start with the plant on Fortuniana rootstock from the get-go. I know that I do it because there are times when you find a rare gem at the big box store that you just must try, but it's on the wrong rootstock. This happened to me with Correta Scott King. I found it at Lowes in clearance. Poor thing was half dead but the flower struck me so much that I turned it into my little pet project. Today that plant is five feet high and healthy. Knowing that I'm going to lose it anyway, I have already found it on Fortuniana rootstock from K&M and have hence begun to build it (its replacement) up by placing it in a 7 gallon pot.

Either way, enjoy your exploration into modern gardening and please keep us posted on how it went.

Good luck,

Adrian.

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Comments (12)

User
7 years ago
Colette (Cl.) had been in a 5 gal. pot about 2 years when gophers began. I buried the pot, 12 years ago? She's a vigorous grower and apart from restricting her height I haven't seen anything detrimental.

Do sandy nematodes stay in the top 12 inches or soil or are they as deep as 18 inches? I think that would determine pot size.
pink rose(9b, FL ) thanked User
pink rose(9b, FL )
Original Author
7 years ago
Irisgal

Nematodes stay in the top 12 inches of the soil .good to hear your rose is thriving.. DId you drill holes at the bottom of the pot before burying it ?
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Yes, you can definitely grow plants in pots buried in the ground, but it really isn't a solution to the ground drying out too rapidly. It is generally done when the ph requirement of the plant is far different than the native soil so ph adjusted potting soil is put in the pot and then buried in the ground. It is also done as a means of overwintering plants in zones where they are marginally winter hardy. Above ground pots should be considered to be a zone or 2 colder than the same plant in the ground because there is little insulating the roots against the cold in pots unless they are buried in the ground. For your watering needs I would strongly recommend an automated drip irrigation system. For $100 US or less ($40-60 without timer) you can water every pot in your yard without having to do anything other than set the system up. Check out this tutorial for an explanation of how this is done. You can start out just buying a kit with all the instructions such as this one or this one
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Madgallica, I've enjoyed reading your posts over the years, and heeding your advice. Which I DID ask for, I admit. But I am not sure about giving up on some of my baby rose plants because they might not survive in your Zone 5 climate. I just found an online article by a major rosarian in the RI Rose Society, which advises us (there is no mention of very new band-size plants, though) to almost cover the plant with horse manure, a foot deep, for overwintering safely. His garden is in Zone 6, inland RI. My roses are at the edge of Zone 7: the coldest winter temperatures here are above zero. My garden is 800 ft. from the ocean, facing east and south. The nearby presence of the ocean makes the winters less cold and the summers less hot. Is there anyone in this forum who has experience (good or bad) with northeast-coast roses? Maybe someone in New Haven or Mystic CT? I will also ask in the NE forum, and maybe even phone that RIRS rosarian. And also one on Cape Cod. Carol
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Oops. I thought I was in the brugmansia forum, as a similar discussion takes place there. That's what happens when one has two windows going at once. Sorry about that. Okay, to answer your question about dahlias in a pot. I think that you could do this as well with dahlia. It may however stunt the growth somewhat, but probably not significantly ( unless you were planning to show ). The advantage of doing so would be that it would be easier to lift, and then separate the tubers later. Just be sure that you use as large a pot as possible ...2 gallons or more. I had one tuber that was over a foot long last year which was grown in soil in my front garden. I was surprised how big the tubers can actually get. I haven't tried this with dahlias but perhaps an experiment is in order. I love to experiment. Last year, I grew tomatoes hanging upside down from the bottom of the pot as an experiment, but this year won't do that again, as the produce was down significantly. I had heard that it would work so thought why not, (for the cost of a few seeds).
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Lozza, you could impart a lot more information to people if you didn't do it in such condescending and sneering manner.... Yes the various states have their Rose and Horticultural Societies, and yes they usually have people only to willing to help out those seeking information about growing roses, and anything else (I guess I can say I speak from personal experience here, my Mum was a member of the W.A. Rose Society, Gosnells Horticultural Society, accredited Rose and general Horticultural and Floral Art judge with the W.A. Horticultural Council. That was the environment I grew up in. The info was always there at hand.) But today, for the average person just getting going, sure they can ask at their nursery but unless they happen to come across an exhibition being staged somewhere like at one of the big shopping centers, they are not going to come across Rose Society members,or other types of horticultural people or even think about consulting with them. Most of them would be too afraid of being shot down in flames for their ignorance, such as I have seen here,after watching the carrion fowl circling and waiting, after reading back through some of the archived postings.... Wal, listen to Misty, she is already doing it your area so to speak. In the warmer climate, proper dormancy is not going to be achieved; MISTY, do think your roses, when they were under water stress, went dormant? I would choose to do it at the time of the year when the weather was at it's coolest for your area. Although this is probably going to be your driest part of the year it shouldn't be a problem. If you are going to be keeping them in pots, for the purpose of transplanting them into your new garden arrangement, I am sure you will be pretty diligent about watering them. I was always taught that you reduced the canopy by the same degree that you reduced the root mass/ball... I have relocated a lot of roses into pots at one time..., (the ones that I could save from a malevolent ex)(if it were people, I think they call it forced migration) about 300 of them. But because we have such sharp winters here, I could hold of until they were truly dormant. I dug up, with a great deal of grunt and push and effort, (ladies think of childbirth) plants that had been growing in the very fertile Donnybrook soil for about 6 years. Most of the H.T and Floribundas had exceeded their growth stats as described, and as for the D.A.'s, if they weren't 7ft tall, they were 7ft wide, and as for the O.G.R, well, digging them up was another challenge. But we did, a sister and a friend came out to help. Totally backbreaking ... heartbreaking as well, but we got the plants dug up. Then, because the only pots that we had managed to acquire in enough numbers were 10- 12" ones, that's where we made things fit. There were a handful of larger pots, that we managed to put in the larger plants, like my beautiful Albertine. But mainly we dug and heaved and grunted, got the bush free off the...
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Ken (N.E.GA.mts) 7a/b
7 years ago
I did it all the time when I lived in FL. Depending on the type of rose, I used anything from 10 to 25 gal pots. Instead of cutting the bottoms out, I added a BUNCH of extra drainage holes in the bottom of the pots. This way if I wanted to pull the pot for any reason, I was able to do so without bothering the rose to much. When I dug the hole for my pot, I always dug it a little deeper and dumped a layer of pine bark in the bottom of the hole. Nematodes don't like the acid from the pine bark and won't get anywhere near it. As far as soil goes, I used the lightest potting soil I could find. I was able to grow a lot of roses on Dr Huey and own root this way. Mini's and smaller roses went into 10 gal. pots. Own root OGR's usually went into 15 or 20 gal pots. All of my HT's and Floribunda's went into the 25 gal. pots. All of the roses were happy, thus I was happy. I also planted fortuniana grafted roses in to 25 gal. pots. They never missed a beat. Using pots to grow roses in, I was able to control the water and fertilizer on each rose. Plus I had no weeds in the pots to deal with.
pink rose(9b, FL ) thanked Ken (N.E.GA.mts) 7a/b
pink rose(9b, FL )
Original Author
7 years ago
Thanks a lot Ken !

the rose I want to try is Legends on Dr Huey . it is supposed to be a small shrub . would a 10 gallon pot with holes do ?
User
7 years ago
Pink Rose, I wish I had put extra holes in the bottom. At the time it was a temporary measure. I agree with Ken about the larger pot sizes. The pink bark tip is great for sandy soil with nematodes!
pink rose(9b, FL ) thanked User
Ken (N.E.GA.mts) 7a/b
7 years ago
Pink rose---You will find that a good Grade #1 Dr Huey bare root will instantly fill a 10 gal. pot. The roots will have no room to grow. A 15 gal. pot is the smallest I would use. A good place to get pots are Landscape Nursery's. Tree Nursery's. Construction sites the day landscape is put in. If you do some checking around, you'll find some good used pots for just a "smile" and "thank you". In the 30+ years I grew roses in FL., I never paid for any nursery pots. Just make sure the sides of the pots are in good shape.
pink rose(9b, FL ) thanked Ken (N.E.GA.mts) 7a/b
pink rose(9b, FL )
Original Author
7 years ago
Ken ,

Can I buy a regular plastic 15 gal pot from Lowes/Home Depot ?
pink rose(9b, FL )
Original Author
7 years ago
Adrian ,

I really appreciate your detailed reply . We have rock mulch all over our beds . we have a few surface weeds which I pull daily or weekly . All roses I tried to grow on Dr.huey and multiflora did not thrive , rarely blooming . so I pulled them out and planted all Fortuniana instead . Those are good except for the black spot despite spraying .The reason I want to bury the pot in the ground instead of keeping it up is that any plant I pot ,eventually dies !

I wanted Legends rose but its not available on Fortuniana . I will try your method with cutting the bottom of the pot . Today I checked the pots at Lowes , the 10 gallon ones were huge ! I dont know how we will dig such a big hole .should I just use the 5 gallon pot and cut the bottom ? if I put pine bark underneath , will the roots burn ?
toolbelt68
7 years ago
Kublakan, the crab grass you described sounds like Bermuda grass. Which I call the grass from H…!! Our whole yard is covered with the crap and getting rid of it is almost impossible. Mulch it you say… ha, it loves mulch. Plastic sheets won’t stop it as it just grows under the sheet until it finds the edge. Of course it now has a huge root system to support what is sticking out…. grrrrr. This Summer some of it was sticking out top of a 4 foot high bush. It had climbed up through the branches. Round Up doesn’t even kill it as it has joints that block the Round Up from being passed down to the roots.

Pink Rose --
If you have Bermuda grass I suggest you come up with a system where by you can lift the pot up out of the ground each season to check for the grass roots. Maybe two plastic pots, one with the Rose bush sitting inside the other. Punch many holes in the outer pot so a vacuum is not created when removing the pot with the rose.
pink rose(9b, FL ) thanked toolbelt68
kublakan
7 years ago
Pink,

Look up Diamond Fertilizer and see if there's one close to your area. I found them to be the cheapest. You want to purchase the blow-mold variety. I bought the 7 gallon ones to start and then bumped them up to the 10 gallon ones. Retail 10 gallon pots may not suit what you are intending to do since they tend to emphasize pot shape over pot efficiency. BTW, Legends is sold by Nelson's Florida Roses on Fortuniana. I have two. I can tell you that it hasn't been an impressive rose. The two I have represent the third time I've purchased it. I looked forward to the "HUGE" blooms that was mentioned when it first came out. For me it has been very stingy and not a very good grower. I prefer Veteran's Honor or Alec's Red. Right now I'm trying out Firefighter and hoping it lives up to all the hype.

ToolBelt,

This hellish blight on my garden grows very similar to Bermuda Grass, but it is larger, much larger. I slowed it down by covering my flower beds in commercial ground cover for about two or three years as I grew my roses in the pots. I also planted my roses in the ground in the winter months when the grass is at its weakest. I still ended up tearing out yards and yards of fiber optic cable cluster looking roots out of the ground. Nothing works. If you spray you just end up affecting the roses and getting RoundUp damaged growth.
pink rose(9b, FL ) thanked kublakan
pink rose(9b, FL )
Original Author
7 years ago
Adrian,

Legends being a stingy performer ! what a disappointment ! last month I emailed all 3 Fortuniana vendors and they did not have it . I will try again in a month .I bought firefighter last May on Fort from k& M and it did not grow for me and eventually died maybe too much heat . Last month I bought it again from Nelsons ,and it is still very small . the few leaves have black spot too . maybe its a slow starter .

Anyone bury rose pots in the ground ?

kublakan

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Anyone bury rose pots in the ground ?

kublakan

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