Where are you? What is your climate? What sort of soil would be below the raised bed?

Jackie

How raised is the bed?

In my experience, MBRCant takes up a lot of territory, but mine was an airy, lacy plant, not a dense one. You could, if you liked, underplant with bulbs very easily.

As for how deep, will the raised bed be on soil? If so, you can probably make it as deep or as shallow as suits your desire. Most of the roots of a rose bush are be in the top 12-18 inches, but there are likely to be roots going down a good deal deeper.

we are south of houston texas, zone 9, soil is heavy gumbo hence the raised bed, i'm wondering if it will thrive if i make the bed 15 inches deep with access to the gumbo after that by gumbo, i'm talking about virtually impossible to shovel 90 percent of the time the rose is roughly 3 ft tall at most and no more than 30 inches in diameter now so i'll need to move it this fall if possible....

I think it will work. I recently had construction done in my yard. They were supposed to leave me with top soil, but it was 3 inches on top of tons of gravel left over from the construction. I planted a bunch of roses. I dug out what gravel I could and mounded up the roses with good soil. Mrs. BR Cant was one of them. It was a 2 gallon from Chamblees. It's tripled in size so far since being planted this spring. In addition to the initial mounding, I keep adding soil to this bed. It has settled somewhat and I'm planning on putting in a brick outline to help keep in the soil. So in effect, a raised bed. Lots of organics, fish emulsion, Mrs. BR Cant loves it. I lost my old one in the construction. I think her roots will go through anything. I tried to dig that one up and I gave up and decided to get a new one.

Hey! I know that gumbo--used to live down that way. Sure--it's like dealing with brick when dry or semi-hardened cement when damp, but black gumbo is a rich medium when it's miserable tilth is corrected with lots of organic matter & gypsum.

Mrs. B. R. will do fine. Any amount you raise the bed will help--the more, the better, but the roots are going to spread laterally more than down. Gypsum does wonders with gumbo--spread some generously down on the gumbo base before you add the raised bed media. It's also helps some with the alkalinity of the soils & water of the coastal prairie, as does lots of oak leaf mulch & pine bark.

Continuous mulching with leaves & shredded bark will keep the mix fluffy. Mrs. B. R. is a great rose & an easy keeper.

nik i have dealt with the fill before and did not enjoy that experience either there is no fill where i am planting but the soil is very claylike and drainage is somewhat of a problem, even with the land being very flat...and alkalinity is also a problem the well water is very alkaline also, so it's pretty much an uphill battle.....

blue girl thanks for the advice, i've tried adding amendments but when (if) you ever get the hole dug, it's much like a large clay bowl that water doesn't drain from....so i've started building the beds and just decided i have two large tea roses that really will need more room than i've allowed for them, so they're getting new homes as soon as the temps dip below 90 (actually 80 for my best gardening work....) i'm using rose soil and extra compost so i'm adding to those beds all the time....

I would be tempted to build this bed at whatever time of year the soil is most workable, even if that is not great. I would take a garden fork and push it into the gumbo and rock it back and forth, not lifting it, not trying to turn it, just penetrating it to build some gaps in it. Do this over and over and over, as many times as you can stand to do it. Essentially you are duplicating lower level of the process of double digging. Then build your raised beds on top of it.