you specifically state in your web page that ZD is not suitable for containers, obviously this is to do with its large size as a mature plant. Mine grew 10 fold in a container in only one year in a very good sunny and ventilated position, yet did not bloom at all.

I have a large clay vase (about 1 m deep and 65 cm wide). Which are the chances of growing Zephirine Drouhin successfully in such a confined space? and how long could I manage to keep it ?

Needless to say, I have space constrains in my small garden.

I will appreciate some feedback to:
[email protected]

Hi jorge and welcome to ATP! It would help to know where you are and what growing zone you are in. Pictures are always helpful too and more information about where you want to grow it .. as in how much sun is it getting.

I've grown climbers in containers before with no problem. Usually when roses won't bloom, they are not getting enough sun. Roses tend to need a minimum of 6 hours of full, blazing hot sun. Container roses also want more food than you usually put on ones in the ground. In my experience, roses grown in containers also benefit from root pruning every couple of years so you don't have a pot full of roots and very little soil.

Zephirine Drouhin actually is one of the shade-tolerant roses. Perhaps not full shade, but I have two that get only a couple of hours of sun and they bloom abundantly. In contrast, the one I have in full sun is less robust and tends to suffer from powdery mildew and stunted blooms when the temperature rises above 80 degrees F.

I personally would hesitate to grow one in a container because it wants to grow to more than 10 feet tall. Keeping it in a container only a meter deep would entail judicious pruning of the canes and roots, similar to a bonsai plant.

That's the first shade tolerant rose I've ever heard of! Are there others? I have a corner in my back yard that only gets about 4 hours of morning sun and it would have a nice fence to climb over - think it would be ok there?

Yes, Anne. Zephirine Drouhin would love a fence to climb and should do very well with 4 hours of sun. There are many shade-tolerant roses. You can use this page to search for roses by characteristics.

http://garden.org/plants/group...

Just check the "Shade tolerant" box in the "Misc" section. You can also add other requirements to the search form if you wish.

hello Anne, Xeramtheum and the others. Thanks for our interest and comments.

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a sub tropical area to the south of Brazil and Uruguay, with a very long growing season, high humidity and only brief, rather warm winters, which is why we usually get only half dormancy.

My ZD is about 1.80 m tall, it produced all that growth in one year and a half. So far I have been growing it in a 0.45 cm deep pot and she looks OK, although it needed regular spraying to fight back powdery mildew and blackspot. I have read that climbers need time to get established before giving a good display of bloom.

The location is reasonably good, with many hours of morning and afternoon sun and fairly well ventilated.

I give Zeffy regular pellet feeding too and lots of humus , but apart from the only three flowers it produced (responding to last year's pruning), all the new growth has given nothing but leaves. I have not done any pruning this winter and it is already leafing out.

I grow another Bourbon in a large pot, Souvenir de la Malmaison, that blooms really well in spite of mildew and black spot attacks , but of course, it is not the climbing sport and it has a moderate size.

The reason to consider growing ZD in a pot is simply because I only have a small garden with nearby walls, and the best spots in he ground are already occupied by other large plants, like Compassion and Clair Matin. Besides they grow against a wall, which is not convenient for mildew prone varieties. In that respect, the large 1 m deep pot offers an advantage as I could place it in a better, more ventilated position.

Enough for now, I do not want to make it too long. Needless to say, I would love to keep ZD and see it smothered in bloom, even if it lived a comparatively shorter life. But I do not know if I stand any chance at all and had better offer it to a "foster family with a large garden" (I shall never get one!)

I will be looking forward to more feedback.

jorge ...

Think of it as trying to grow a tree in a container. You can grow dwarf trees in containers, but I wouldn't try to grow even a medium sized tree in a container because there isn't enough room for the roots.

Climbers like to get their feet under them before they spend plant energy on blooming. I've only grown one climber in a container and it was never happy.

Of course, everything depends on the rose.

I do see your point, and appreciate your taking the trouble to post a comment.

Awkwardly as it seems, the actual reason for trying ZD in a pot is the fact that this was a present to me from a foreign friend (it is not grown in our country, at least not available commercially) plus the severe space constraints I have in my small urban garden.

Apart from that, ZD is usually described a medium-sized climber, and, as such, probably more manageable than a large one. Besides, however large and vigorous, it cannot be compared to a tree. I have seem lemon trees and other citruses growing in pots in sunny patios nearby.

Naturally, altough they do pretty well, they never get to grow as large as they would in a more appropriate environment.

I was just wondering whether the idea was too off-the-wall, or in case someone could provide some specific advice that would help me keep the plant with some mutual degree of satisfaction.

Jorge ....

I understand why you want to keep on trying with the rose.

Sometimes, the best way to answer that question is to take the plant out of the container and look at the roots. If the plant is so root bound that it cannot grow the small feeder roots a rose needs to take up water and nutrients, you may be able to keep it alive, but I don't think the rose will be happy in the long run.

When I took my climber out of it's pot I found that the roots were so wound around the plant and the root mass of large roots was so big, the rose didn't have a chance of succeeding and I had it in a very large pot.

Good luck with your rose.

thanks a lot, Lyn.

sometimes I think of it as a lost cause, a preposterous endeavor. But then I look back at the plat and I go "what if..."

I have a flower bed deep enough to support vigorous root growth, but it is against a wall and in-between the corners of my back deck, hence poorly ventilated.

If at all, ZD would only grow to catch pests of all sorts, mainly mildew, black spot and rose scale, not to mention the ever present red spider mite. That is why I keep on turning to the idea of the pot.

Uff... "I wish I had a river..."

My ZD is planted on the ground, by an east facing wall and about 3-4 feet away, there is a pergola that provides shade to it and nearby planted azaleas, camellias and hydrangeas. When it gets shade, it is not dense shade but "bright shade". It always blooms well for me so I would not consider the shade that you describe as the causal agent. Perhaps, as mentioned before, the roots are circling and-or perhaps the soil needs more ump fertilizer or moisture-wise. These climbers like to "eat". In my nearby plant nurseries, they sell soil test kits to check nitrogen/phosphorus/pottasium content. They are quite cheap and very inexact but they help me determine when the levels of one of those minerals is either too low or high. You may want to ck on the roots and the levels of minerals to see if either is causing the lack of blooms. A pest here in the states called Rose Midge can also cause blooming problems. So can crown gall.

jorge ...

One thing to keep in mind is that your rose is a young plant. Climbers generally like to get their feet under them and then put on some top growth and in the third year they are ready to bloom. So maybe all you need is a good dose of patience.

If the plant is starting to decline, I'd check the roots. If there is no room for the rose to grow the feeder roots, it doesn't matter how well you feed the rose, it can't take up the nutrients. Since it is growing, that is probably not an immediate need because those same roots take moisture up to the top growth.

Another thing you can try is moving the container to another spot. Sometimes, moving a container plant just two feet can make a difference in a plant's performance. I am not telling you this will work with your rose, but it's worth a try. You might switch it out with another large container. I don't know.

Asking "What if ... " is very much a part of the soul of a gardener. to ATP

luis_pr, you brought up a good point about checking the soil. The only nutrients container plants get are the ones we add to the container. In the US, it's almost impossible to really know the ingredients in any potting soil we purchase. to ATP, too.

Smiles,
Lyn

thanks everybody !

Here in the US, many local nurseries sell soil kits that test for high or low levels of NPK. The kits are also sold by mail. You can use those on the potting mix to tell if the nutrients have leeched out and detect if little minerals are left. In such a case, you need to replace the potting soil or add fertilizer to replenish what was lost.

Thank you Luis,

I will do the latter on a regular basis as these kits are not available here. Thanks a lot. Jorge

zuzu said:Yes, Anne. Zephirine Drouhin would love a fence to climb and should do very well with 4 hours of sun. There are many shade-tolerant roses. You can use this page to search for roses by characteristics.

http://garden.org/plants/group...

Just check the "Shade tolerant" box in the "Misc" section. You can also add other requirements to the search form if you wish.

does anybody now if the petals are edible ?

I have not "tried" ZD. David Austin Roses and own root roses are preferred for cooking though:

https://www.tyrantfarms.com/st...

Note: new member posted to old 2015 thread, just didn't want anyone get confused.