Hi,

If you'll indulge a beginner rose grower's question:

I bought 6 own-root roses from the Chamblee's coop, last spring. They grew much larger than I expected, more quickly than I expected, (they're in a built in planter box that surrounds my deck), so I'm planning to replace them with drift roses from the upcoming coop. I love 5 of the 6 so much that I want to be able to take them with me, when I anticipate moving in 4-5 years.... so, I'm planning to grow them in containers on an enormous patio, that needs color. Is this a good time of year to transplant them? I'm assuming I should trim them down, before transplanting. Any other hints?

TIA!

Liz

Liz

It's a great time to transplant roses in your location, Liz, because of the rain. I don't necessarily trim roses down when I transplant them from one container to another. The main thing is to keep them well watered, but we don't really have to worry about that during this season in California.

This is also a great time to prune roses in California. Yours are still young, and I usually don't prune roses in the conventional sense of the term for the first year I have them, but a light trim will give them added stimulus to grow. If your co-op roses grew to be as huge as a couple of mine did, however, you could cut off the top third of the long canes. I just did that yesterday to some of my roses from Charlene's co-op. The Buck roses didn't grow that much, but the Austins were reaching for the sky.

Thanks Zuzu! I'll follow your suggestion & cut the top third of the canes. Some of them are bending, in fact one is laying on the ground, and I don't want the plant to be stressed trying to support those long canes.

I'll be pruning the rest of my roses, this week or next, after I attend a local nursery's rose pruning workshop. I've pruned my few hybrid teas, in the past, but am new to shrub roses.

We usually don't get much rain, but my garden (& I) is/are loving the water this year.

Thanks again!

Liz

You're not, by some chance, going to the rose pruning workshop at Garden Valley Ranch on January 22nd, are you? My pal Fallon's teaching that one and she's taking me with her for moral support.

You'll love pruning shrub roses. You can almost use a hedge clipper on them (and some people do) and they'll still be happy.

Zuzu, Liz lives in the San Diego area. Edited to say Google always sends me down there! Zuzu reminded me it's Redwood City area.
Hi Liz! Yep, as Zuzu says, hard to go wrong pruning the rose shrubs, I do it more for shaping.

What roses did you get in the co-op, which one is growing such long canes? My Mom has several in very large pots, the resin ones that Costco carries in the spring and they are just huge! She has to periodically root prune them to keep the roots from plugging up the drainage holes.

Oh, I thought Liz was in the Emerald Hills near Redwood City.

Not that Redwood City is so close to GVR, but closer than San Diego.

Darn, yes she is, and we even went over that in DG!! My memory is awful! I edited my post.

Now Liz you must tell us where you'll be going for that pruning workshop.

Yes, I'm in the hills above Redwood City & no, I'm not going to the Garden Valley Ranch workshop - wish I was so I could meet you, Zuzu, but Petaluma's a bit far afield for me. I'll be at one of our local nurseries - Wegman's in Redwood City, this Sunday. I went to their fruit tree workshop last Sunday & learned a lot. I tried to go to the rose workshop at Roger Reynolds (Menlo Park) last Sunday, but it was on Saturday - oops - I keep thinking I'm still young enough to trust my memory! So, I zoomed down the road & was only 10 minutes late to the fruit tree workshop.

I'll have to check which rose bush has the long canes - it might be Bengal Tiger.

Sue, I was at Costco, this evening, and saw resin pots - they have a gray cement look - I'd never seen them before. Are those the ones your Mom has? I got some plastic ones at OSH, that are smaller.... now, I'm re-considering, but the rest of my pots are terra cotta (real, not plastic), so I was hoping they'd blend in.

She got several over the past years, same size as those big gray ones but in a tan color and I think a darker brown color. They are nice as she can place them on those wheeled trays on the patio to easily move them if needed. The size also really allows the roots to fill in nicely and the roses are quite large and lush.
I stopped at Wegman's nursery once a long time ago, it's a nice one.