Is there any variety of rose that meets all of these criteria:

1. grows well in a big container
2. is orange or purple or bicolor of some sort
3. is fragrant
4. will produce at least some blooms the same year as being planted

If so I want to try my hand at it this spring. If not, I'll be fine. But there's a possibility I'll be moving later in the year so being in a container makes it easier to take with me. Later one (in a year or two) I could very well put it in the ground.

The pot I have in mind is about 24" wide and about 20" deep.

Currently I'm thinking of this variety: http://www.heirloomroses.com/s...

But if there's any reason why it wouldn't work, or why I should think of something else, please let me know!

Well I ended up buying Sheila's perfume from Heirloom Roses. It will be shipped in April. I'm so excited!

Happy you found one!

That's a good looking and smelling rose. I saw it in person once somewhere and loved it.

I hope it grows well for me. I'm going to try to get all of the soil and environment and everything as perfect as possible. I don't know if I will try a "spiller" plant in the same pot or not. I may just put rocks all around it and wait until the following year before I decide if I want to put a spiller.

Jai, since own root plants start out small, I'd recommend against planting anything with it the first year. I think the competition for moisture and nutrients could delay the development of the rose. I've potted own root plants in larger pots upon arrival in the past in order to baby them and allow them to reach a size that allows them to compete among other garden plants. The size of your container should work nicely.

Thank you. I made sure to add $10 extra to get a bigger plant. I wish spring would hurry up!

What a beautiful rose! Just lovely!

I grew Sheila's Perfume in my rose bed for several years. It was gorgeous heavenly scented bloom. My only complaint was that the blossoms opened quickly. A couple of years ago the city needed to put in a new sewer line and I lost it. Hope it does well for you.

Stupid question. What do you mean that it opened quickly?

Did you do anything special in the winter? I have seen on some websites it is listed as hardy from zone 6 to 10 but I have seen more people in zones 4 and 5 grow it too.

I'm zone 5b and don't do anything special for winter except allow the bushes to go dormant. Some roses take 3 or 4 days to open and last longer. Others open more quickly.........

Jai_Ganesha said:Stupid question. What do you mean that it opened quickly?

When one is considering roses that will be cut and put in vases or carried around the country to rose exhibitions, one of the considerations is how long the bud or flower endures after being cut from the plant. Roses that open too quickly can move from bud to being fully open before the event in question occurs. In a perfect world a hybrid tea rose might form a towering high-centered bud on the tenth day of May. It might then be cut and put in a vase where it may last (I'm out of my league here....) maybe three weeks? Alternatively it may take ten or twelve days to open on the plant. In a totally dysfunctional world a rose forms a nice bud on the tenth day in May and when you go out to check it on the eleventh it has opened and all the petals have fallen off. (In my garden they have been swallowed by deer.) A rose that "opens too quickly" is closer to the dysfunctional end of the scale than one believes one should have to tolerate.

Thank you. That makes sense in a way.

Since flowers are one of the plant world's primary means of reproduction it makes sense that plants would want to open their flowers as soon as possible with as much gusto as possible. So I guess when you measure which ones open more-or-less slowly you're always fighting a losing battle (i.e. it's a question as to whether they open too fast--none of them open too slowly and stay displayable for months). Right?