If you are not fortunate enough to have a garden, there is nothing to stop you from growing a potted rose on your terrace or balcony. With proper care and by respecting simple parameters, you will soon be able to fully enjoy the beauty of these exceptional flowers and their legendary fragrance.
Choosing the right rosebush
Everything will depend on the space you can give to your plant and therefore on the size of the pot. The majority of modern roses accept this method of cultivation, simply avoid planting a climbing rose with a large growth.
For small spaces, the choice will be miniature roses or ground cover roses which have a lesser development.
The cultivation of a bush rose is quite feasible if you install it in a deep enough pot.
How to plant a rose in a pot?
- Choose a beautiful subject in a container, so you can plant it all year round. For bare root or root ball roses, you will have to wait until November.
- Choose a pot at least 40 cm deep, preferably in clay to ensure better oxygenation of the roots.
- Spread a 5 cm layer of clay balls at the bottom of the pot after covering the drain hole with a pebble or a shard.
- Fill 1/3 of the pot with good commercial potting soil containing a slow release fertilizer.
- Place the rosebush in the pot after soaking its roots in a bucket of water at room temperature.
- Bare-root plants should be pruned and pruned before planting.
- Calculate the planting height so that the grafting point of the rose is flush with the surface of the pot.
- Complete with potting soil.
- Never bury the grafting point.
- Pack, water, and adjust the height of the potting soil.
- Spread a mulch of pine bark on the surface of the soil.
- Place your rosebush in a very sunny place.
Maintenance tips
A rosebush in a pot dries out much more quickly than a rosebush in the ground. Remember to water it often without letting water stagnate in the cup at the risk of seeing the roots suffocate.
Avoid watering the foliage to limit the appearance of cryptogamic diseases.
In the spring, make regular applications of "special rose" fertilizer to support the flowering.
Cut off the faded flowers above a new eye in the axil of the first leaf, this will allow to obtain new shoots and thus new flowers.
Treat with Bordeaux mixture to avoid the appearance of diseases.
Monitor the appearance of aphids and treat with nettle manure.
Prune in February/March.
