Thank you for your reply. I believe I actually (possibly, it was years ago) ordered the rose from them, so I'm fairly certain of the variety. I plan to at this point just move it from where it sprouted out of the ground to a new place in the ground, just in the sandy soil. I was going to add a little peat or top soil to it for nutrients and to increase the bio matter in the soil. Trust me, even in a pot this plant just grew and grew, maybe it will actually flower for me in the ground if I give it the potash. Thank you very much for the info!

Fortuniana is a once bloomer. It will only bloom on wood that is at least one year old, so if you prune, you may lose the next year's blooms. I grow it in pots and it blooms just fine as long as I don't prune it.

So it can never be pruned?

Fortuniana does not bloom for me if I prune it. I looked it up on the web and some sites say that wood has to be 3 to 4 years old to flower. This is a lot older than I thought but would explain why it would never flowered for a year or 2 following a pruning.

I would think that if you have it draping over the fence and only prune it lightly throughout the year to keep it under control, then you will get blooms but it could take a year or two.

I have grown it as a mounding bush, if I tried to control it, it would stop flowering, if I let it alone it would take over the garden. I removed it. I did take cuttings and have some in very neglected pots in the back of my mats and it bloomed this year.

I am curious why you would want to grow fortuniana when in Florida we have other varieties that bloom year-round and pruning doesn't stop the blooming.

Good luck with it

Hi Valrose, thank you for your response. I have not had luck with other varieties, can you recommend a few reliable bloomers that do not require a ton of spraying? I did recently order Ducher and Blush Noisette. Maybe I should soon give up on my love of roses! I just remember the beautiful ones that used to grow up north and I really hoped to grow a few successfully in my landscape.

I forgot one of my all time favorites "Belinda's Dream". One of the best shrub roses, beats the pants off Knockouts in Florida.

These are a random selection of roses that I grow.

This is Pink Pet. One of the easiest rose to grow

Below is Louis Phillippe, a old rose commonly found around old Florida homes sometimes called "The Cracker Rose"

This a planting of Belindas Dream, not quite 2 years

Below is Madame Joseph Schwart, another old Tea Rose

Below is Climbing Devoniensis. More of a spring/fall bloomer here,

In Florida, we need to mulch to keep the sun from baking out all the organics in our soil. Pine bark, leaves, pinestraw, woodchips, leaves all work well.

Thank you for all of the ideas! I was going to mulch with pine straw initially as we have had a problem with wood ants. I was going to add some peat and compost to the area I am first going to try bushes in.

Sounds perfect, I wish you lots of success with your rose garden

Did you know that Strawchicago's posts disappeared from this thread, or at least I can't find them? I wanted to reread the one about once blooming hardy roses, its not something that we can get to flower here and I thought maybe her posts held some info on why that might be.

I did not know, and I'm not sure why. I actually found that information very interesting, I went back and read the threads that he/she linked to. I'm not sure what happened there. Valrose, is there a way to PM people on here? I was wondering if you would mind if I sent you a message with a few more questions about your methods?

I have not PM anyone here, but the way I understand is we have to click on each others username and check the "following" option, then we can PM. If anyone has actually done this and wants to chime in, please do.

I would be glad to answer your message through PM. I do like this open forum type of community platform and would like to see more people get involve with posting threads on the Organic Rose Growing. So either way, if you ask, I'll be glad to talk about my methods.