If you have a spot in a rain-shadow -- such as under the eaves of a house -- try moving it there. Mine is a few years old, and it still balls occasionally. I don't think it's a matter of maturity as much as it is about weather conditions as the buds are opening. You certainly can grow it in a large pot. If you have a spot that's sunny enough but away from the rain, it should do well. But the balling can return when we have humidity and cool nights. It's just an inherent problem when you grow roses with many thin petals in areas with humidity and frequent rain.

:-)

~Christopher

Thanks Christopher, weather has been very wet. I don't mind occasional balling, but almost all flowers were soggy.

I will give it another season, of not will move it to a container.

If you can find 'Pink Soupert' -- I think only Rogue Valley Roses has it, but maybe also try Burlington Roses -- it might make for a better plant where you currently have 'Clotilde Soupert'. Or, if that's too pink, look for 'Lullaby' instead. Then you can think of moving 'Clotilde Soupert' to a pot, or someplace out of the rain. I just assume that it will ball whenever it's wet -- rain and/or humidity -- and nights are cool, so I'll cut off any buds that are already looking glued together. It blooms so frequently that even doing this will leave you lots of flowers over the year. But, if that's too annoying in a wet climate, move it out of the rain.

:-)

~Christopher

It's notorious for that problem.

Well, ARE suggested this as aas they did not have the rose I originally ordered.

Pink Soupert looks great, I think I will just move this to a container. Seems small enough to do well.

Another thing you can try doing is gently pressing the exterior petal so that they don't stick together. This allow them to open properly even if the outer ones are stuck. However, one needs to do this as soon as it starts happening. I have the bush form in a pot and have resorted to this as we also have a lot of rain. Still, having the pot on wheels and keep it protected during long rainy spells is probably best and worth it for me. There's something special about this rose. Christopher, thanks for the suggestion of PS and Lullaby. I had never heard of the former. OT, but I really want Pink Ghislaine de Feligonde.

Vapor, do you mean manually opening it up a bit?

I really really like this rose, but so many blooms just turn brown, I'm heartbroken! And Houston is super wet through the whole year.

Yes, you just press on the bottom of the petals and it opens the outer ones. Often that's all it needs as they stick together and prevent any from opening so they rot at the bottom. A quick press is all they need, although you can peel off the outer petals if you want. I made this up, or so I thought, until I read it's a common practice. Hopefully, I won't have to do this on my climber under the eaves! So far, so good on that one. Having spent some time in Houston, I will say we share the humidity, but do get true winter. Is there any plant you could grow that would protect it from heavy rain? I have a spruce limb that takes the brunt of the rain from my Ballerina which really seems to help with BS. She was disaster elsewhere in my garden, but in this slightly protected area is doing much better, even if slightly shaded.

I know this is true of several roses. I've done it with Etoile de Lyon, for instance.

I have CS under the eaves in part shade. The blooms have been a little sparse but it is only 2 years old. All the blooms I've had have opened and I'm in Florida.

I had CS once. After two years of having to open EVERY SINGLE bloom by hand, I gave up - none of my other roses need that sort of midwifing! That is one of maybe 3 roses I have ever shovel pruned - so frustrating because of course when the blooms finally opened, they were gorgeous.

Jackie

I've grown her for many years now in a huge pot in semi shade with no rain protection. She blooms often in this spot, but I'm sure would be really prolific if she got more sun. The bush is large and has rooted into the ground through the holes in the bottom of the pot, so I've just left her there. Mine has a tendency to ball early in our season when it's still cool and damp. Once it heats up, she doesn't have as much of an issue with it unless strong rain comes as a flush is just nearing opening stage. I have manually helped open a few blooms, but no way I could or would manually open all the blooms...she has very large flushes even in the shade. We have very high humidity here...often in the upper ninety percentile, but that doesn't seem to phase her as long as the daytime temperature is warm. Very good bs resistance here without spraying, too.

I can't seem to find a full bush shot, but here are some that show more than just a close up bloom.

Spring:

Summer:

Fall:

These pictures are amazing and show why we all love her and grow her despite her faults! She is also very clean in our high rain/humidty climate which is saying a lot.

She is a problem child. I have the climbing version protected in a corner under some eaves, but facing the incoming rain. Last year was her "leap year." She is all but perfect in a part of the country where it's tough going for a rose. Clean with no spray, floriferous, and an exuberant grower with mannerly thorns. Except every. single. bloom. balls.

Sigh.

I have something coming in to replace her as she is in one of the best spots in my garden, but I just don't know what to do with her. I hate to shovel prune her. So bare root her and find someone that wants a go with her? Toss her in a hole on the neglected back fence line? Put her under a tree in the shade? Ugh, with ultra warm weather right now I need to make a decision pronto.

I had to dig mine up. I couldn’t take the pain of all those brown balls hanging there looking pathetic. It would always seem to open the days or week we had crazy rains . And we never seem to just have a light pleasant rain here. When it did open, the fragrance was easily the most wonderful thing

These pictures of CS are absolutely wonderful, but I would never have the courage to plant this rose. She's so easily distressed, and my garden has enough problems without a prima donna screaming for attention. Still, such a lovely rose.

Based on all the replies, I have decided to move it to a container.

How large does it get? I have a 20 gallon and a 35 gallon pot, would the 20 gallon be enough?

I plan to keep her under the patio...hopefully that will do the trick.

, sub K3, I try her under the tree in the shade. Especially if it's a deciduous tree. With dappled light. It may not give as many flowers but I think they'll be protected by the leaves a bit anyway.

I think of Clotilde as a low- maintenance workhorse and non -fussy backbone but I guess that's just here. I guess I have a little tolerance for balled blooms taking a little time to drop off but they do drop off and then there's the repeat. I have five plants of it in my garden. The one in most sun is about 6x6'.

I agree with Pat that warmth seems to be the factor that affects blooms opening. If it's cool and damp they ball but warmer and damp they'll open. Rain can mess up a great many roses. So I'm thinking Houston is warm enough for Clotilde. I'd say Clotilde is one of my top three roses.

I really don't mind a bit of lballing, but almost all of the buds turned brown. With the amount of rain we get, and the location, open with nothing to protect, I was thinking the best thing would be to move it to a container.

Not sure how large she would get, but thinking of putting her in a 20 gallon pot and taking it from there.

Hi, me again :D

Hopefully, potting yours and moving to a more protected area will do wonders for her balling issue. My Clotilde bush gets its shade from a huge, 60 year old pecan tree, but the tree is far enough away that it doesn’t protect from rain. Mine is in more shade than most roses would tolerate, so I’m happy to get blooms as often as I do, even if they sometimes ball. During summer when the pecan tree has its leaves, she gets almost no sun except as sun is rising and setting, but still gives me blooms often.

She is in a one of three big matching pots along a walkway. The first rose (Spice) along that walkway gets several hours a day of full sun, the second (Marie Pavie) gets direct sun starting late afternoon, and then poor Clotilde is almost completely shaded in the final spot along the walk. I’m not sure the size of the pots gallon wise, but they are probably about 2 ½ feet tall and two feet wide.

I still can’t find a full bush shot of Clotilde, but here is one of Marie Pavie from Spring 2016 in identical pot to Clotilde’s. Clotilde is now about the size that Marie was in this picture. Marie Pavie is twice the size she was then and has split her pot :(. You can barely see the edge of a blue plastic pot in right front corner of below picture...that's one of those big plastic pots Lowes carries in multiple colors...Spice, MP and CS's pots are bigger than those. And you can see the mini yellow rose, Rise 'N Shine, sitting in front of Marie's pot in its one gallon container waiting to be planted somewhere (and later removed due to horrible blackspotting). Hoping my rambling helps you decide on the pot you need...lol

Pat, what a lovely picture of Marie Pavie! I will use the bigger pot for sure!

Whe re are you located? None of my Rose's seem to get huge, and I am in Houston.

What did you do with Marie after the pot split? I am planning to put a few Rose's in containers permanently, so curious on what others are doing.

Thanks a lot for the information and the pictures, they help a lot!

I must be doing something seriously wrong as my potted roses have NEVER looked like that! : (

I’m halfway between Huntsville & Birmingham in North Alabama, and yes, roses seem to get huge here compared to a lot of other areas. Our summer heat, humidity and rainfall are probably similar to yours, but we are colder in the winter. I think I’m still technically 7a, but we rarely have 7a winters anymore…usually more like 7b to 8a…still colder than Houston, though. That might make some difference. I don’t normally lose a lot of cane to winter…most winters my roses don’t even lose all their leaves and go completely dormant, but they do take a break from blooming for at least 3 months (usually 4) during the winter. I think that downtime gives them enough rest and renewal to shoot to the sky once spring weather really kicks in. Enduring soggy winters in our poor draining, acidic red clay is the death of so many perennials I’d love to grow, but for some reason, roses seem to love it. That might make a difference in the mature size of my roses in the ground, but not the potted ones. For those, it must be the hot, humid summers and the cold, but not frigid winters.

As far as Marie goes, I don’t know what to do. Right now, she is still in her pot, but the pot has a long vertical split from the base to almost the top. All three of the roses in those pots have gotten way larger than I expected they would. They have trunks, not canes supporting them now. I assume the other two roses will eventually split their pots, too. Ideal resolution would probably be to dig holes next to each of the roses, saw the pots off of them and just slide the roses into the holes. They are in front of huge holly bushes that have been in the ground since the 90s, though, so I’ll be amazed if I can dig big enough holes without running into holly root issues.

With roses grown permanently in pots, you are supposed to take them out every couple of years, trim their roots and give them new potting soil…a rule I should have followed, but didn’t.

A suggestion for a permanently potted rose is the bush form of Cecile Brunner. Mine is planted in an identical pot to Clotilde and friends (I got six of those pots at an amazing clearance price years ago). Cecile is in full sun by our pool and has lots of reflective heat from the pool water, concrete around the pool and ugly lava rock and white vinyl fence (DH’s doing, not mine..lol). She’s been such a trooper for years in sauna like conditions there...prolific bloomer, lovely fragrance, excellent bs resistance, basically thornless and stays a reasonable size for her pot. My only complaint is she’s not good about self cleaning…she’ll keep blooming even if you don’t dead head, but it definitely detracts from her beauty if you don’t cut all those spent sprays off. Here are a few pictures of her:

Spring 2018:

These are older pictures, but show her pretty centers and frequent button eye better:

I had contacted ARE a couple of days ago as I bought it based on their recommendation. Mike Shoup called today and recommended that I wait until March and that it should do well when it warms up. We have been having some really wet weather lately. I asked, and he said yes, it would do well in a container, a 20 gallon should be fine. He was SO nice, and highly recommended the rose, I'm going to wait and see. I can always move it in the fall or next spring.

Roses don't get that large here...Pat, you may be right, they don't really go dormant, or maybe I neglect them! Mine are all small, even climbers.

I have Cecile Brunner in the ground. She is ok, I like the buds and half opened blooms, the fully open ones I'm not crazy about. But your pictures look way better that what mine looks like!

I have found that Cecil really improves with age so if you haven't had it for very long just wait.

is it me, or did Pat's post with Cecil disappear? Those pictures were lovely, but i dont see them now...

I live close to Houston so we have the same weather and I also have been growing Clotilde in a pot for several years. The first big flush she ever had balled, the each and every one of them, we had a very cool and wet spring that year and she was just one year Old. Since then Clo has not balled at all for me, I don’t know if it’s because she has matured but even now she is blooming and hasn’t balled and we have had some very wet weather. She really does love the heat and blooms in big flushes all spring and summer for me. Don’t give up on her! How long have your other roses been in the ground? Sometimes it takes the OGR to mature before they become big roses. My Mrs. B R CANT stayed about knee high for three years and then exploded in growth and is now taller than me!

Some of my climbers (Austins) have been in the ground since 2015 when we moved to this house.

Clotilde and friends only went in last year. I'm going to hang in there with this one, i really love the blooms when they open. I can always move her later.

I'm fine with smaller size, my yard is not that big!!

I can still see the Cecile pictures, so hopefully they are back for you, too. I had forgotten until vaporvac’s post that I wasn’t a big fan of Cecile her first year or two. She either does get better with age or my tastes changed. When I got her, I think I was still getting used to the smaller bloom size of a lot of the OGRs after so many years of only growing HTs with huge blooms. Now, I seem to love all rose blooms be they big, small or even singles.

It's good that you heard from someone in Houston to give you more local feedback on this rose. It sounds like it may be possible for Clothilde to grow out of her balling under some conditions. Even in my hot summers and pretty dry climate, she never fails to ball for me though I mostly get pink balls rather than brown ones. Mine is about 7 years old and I've just resigned myself to thinking of her blooms as round, sort of like a rose balloon flower. If she survives our winters that well she has earned her garden space. It's definitely a rose to grow cautiously in most zones - there's no way my CS has ever looked remotely as lovely as any of the photos on this thread.

Cynthia

Pat how do you keep your pots watered? I'm a little over a hundred miles due north of you and once we get into July and August keeping pots water seems almost impossible--2x a day is just not realistic for me...Are you on automatic drips?

I have a Cecile Brunner. I got it spring of 2017 but almost lost it last winter with the very late freeze. It came back from the roots, but was still puny by last fall. Yours gives me hope she'll come around if the next couple months aren't too brutal. I suspect the 50+ degree change in temps yesterday is harder on them than just the cold...

Hi subk3, I have a sprinkler system (above ground heads rather than drip) for part of my beds. I made new beds and expanded others since having it installed, so not all of them have automatic irrigation. None of my pots have drip lines, but some are where the automatic sprinklers will reach them. For areas and pots that need manual watering, they only get it alternate nights during the school year…I’ll water stuff in the front one night when I get home from work and stuff in the back the next night. My DH is a teacher, so once school lets out for the summer, he helps me some with the watering. He actually did all of the watering last year since I was busy with my mom’s health issues. He doesn’t water quite like I do though…so I had some casualties.

I thought I lost my Cecile one of the polar vortex winters a few years back. Everything above soil level in her pot was dead, but she came back from her roots that spring and hasn’t let up since. Hopefully, yours will survive this rollercoaster weather we are having. I haven’t pruned the roses yet, but they are already getting new growth. I’m sure they are not happy with the weather fluctuations! I know I’m not happy about it…I got so much done outside last weekend and had so many garden chores planned for this weekend…but looks like I’ll be stuck inside cleaning house with the cold and wind back now :/

2 months later, and Clothide is covered with dozens is brown balls. I forgot to push back the outer petals...when is the time to do this? When the browning begins I'm assuming its it's too late?

I grow a large CS in San Marcos. My experience is the same as pat bama describes. I get some nice blooms in spring (it’s covered rt now), some balled blooms, then the balling issue isn’t a problem once the heat kicks in- usually mid to late May. Spice was the first antique rose I planted and still one of my favorites.

you can try now to open to peel back some of the petals now and see if that helps, mine actually did ball this year and I peeled back petals and it did help a little but not mucH. What I am going to do is deadhead the whole bush and by the time she blooms again It will be much warmer and she will have Beautiful blooms and I’m ok with that, balling is just something I have learned to accept with Clo.

I'm East of Houston near the bay and I never bought CS for just this reason, so I can't offer specific advice on whether it will ever grow out of its balling problem. I can say that I grow a few problem child roses that also have difficulties opening early in the growing season (Homere, Etoile de Lyon, I'm looking at YOU). I planted them in the hottest, sunniest parts of my garden and by May or so, when the temps stay over 85 they tend to do better. Honestly, if you've had it for a while and it always does this, then I would call it a turkey and stick a fork in it. Especially since it's still small enough to not require a tractor to get it out. :)

Thanks Brittie, will see what happens this summer. I almost wish it did not bloom so much, or rather try to bloom as it looks so bad! I only planted last fall, so will give it more time..

Maybe try some extra potassium to prevent balling?

Totoro, does that help? I have some that I got for my veggies...should I just sprinkle some around CS?

Brittie, it is nice to see you posting. I like your journal entries on HMF. I have a Trinity doing very well here because of you.

I'm with Brittie, I have a mature Cl. CS and it's coming out after this spring flush even it the flush is trouble free. We are a couple weeks out. At the end of the day 1 out of 4 years is just not going to get it for me. It's replacement came as a barefoot and is now potted up and ready to go.

Good suggestion, Totoro. Wasn't there a post about this on the Organic rose site at one point?

Yes, I am just passing advice on from Strawchicago. I am no expert on the chemistry of soil or the biochemistry of roses, but she did a lot of experiments and reading on the topic.

Potassium moves relatively quickly through the soil so there does not seem to be much harm in trying. It supposedly firms up the petals. I think I tried magnesium with potassium and CS opened without balling despite rain when previously she had not.