Oh, Sheila darling, you're assuming I'm a normal person who does things right, and anyway it's too late because they're all in the ground for better or worse. Mostly for worse by the look of things, which is why my roses will never look like your incredible roses that are all on steroids, they're so big and beautiful. I will pray that the garden gods have mercy on someone with zero energy, although I will water faithfully since the roses are right outside my back door and so is the hose.

I know you hate pots, Ingrid, but you could try potting on new ones. I agree ARE and Heirloom do take right off quicker.

I know you have said this in the past but I thought I'd try again.

I do think the little ones in the ground will get there if you can keep them alive.

I hope I didn't sound snotty, didn't mean to, and to tell the truth it didn't even occur to me to pot them up. I'll do my best to keep them going, and I'll be a lot more relaxed when I can see even the tiniest bit of growth or change, which hasn't happened so far with the RV roses. They are also in a somewhat shaded area which probably makes a difference. Cl. Caroline Testout from ARE definitely wants to grow and that's so encouraging!

I do what Sheila said with tiny roses which come in those band pots. I use a 1 gallon pot for them, for about 1 year. I put them in partial shade for about a week, and then move them into the sun, in someplace where the critters can't get them. (Before I had my deer fenced garden, I used to put wire cages around them until they got big enough to survive.

Jackie

On my upper deck I have my hospital Ward filled with roses that I dug back up and potted because I planted them too early and too small.

I have learned my lesson and now pot everything for a year. The exception to that could be the gallon size rose from Heirloom. It is already a nice big plant.

Those itty bitty bands definitely catch up but they need a bit of babying.

My experience has been mixed. I've had tiny bands from High Country and Rogue Valley that have taken off right away and didn't need to be in pots--the amount of growth in one year would astound you. I've also had some that needed time to grow and stayed small for more than a year (I'm looking at you Queen of Elegance). I've also had a couple of 1 gallon plants from Roses Unlimited be very slow and hardly grow at all in a year (Clementina Carbonieri) while others took right off. I guess it can depend on the variety, too.

It sounds as though roses are as individual as people. I really appreciate reading about all your experiences. I suppose the quality of the soil would also be a consideration, and the heat as we come into summer. On the other side of the house, where most of the ground squirrels congregate, they've eaten 90% of the plants from Annie's Annuals, so the roses are my biggest hope for some color and beauty in the garden. They haven't touched the oleanders, which of course are very poisonous, but they'll also need a few good years to attain any size. Gardening is all about patience!

I find that for me it really depends a lot on the condition of the bed I'm planting in. If it's a brand new bed, I can get away with planting relatively small new roses out directly. But if it's one of my established beds, a little rose will just get totally swamped by the other roses, perennials, annuals, clematis, etc. since I tend to like a cottage garden style. In which case I really have to grow them on a bit in pots, though I can sometimes get away with direct planting of bigger specimens from ARE or RU, for example. But it is true that keeping up with pots can be difficult, so it's always tempting to plant them directly out - this year was particularly tough because although spring was beautiful, it was dry so I had to do a lot of watering. Plus I had an awful lot of pro stuff to do in the city - sometimes it felt almost physically painful to have to be away from the garden, but you never want to complain about work - and that made keeping up with the potted roses difficult. Of all the nurseries I buy from, I find Rogue the most unpredictable in size. I've gotten plants from them that, though in band pots, are very big, and perfectly ready to hold their own in my over-planted beds, while others are so tiny it just wouldn't be possible. ARE, RU, and Heirloom seem to be the most consistently large, though Heirloom has gotten so expensive I don't order from them unless it's a sale and it's something I really want and can't get elsewhere.

These roses were not particularly small, they each were at least a foot tall but so sparse, just one or two skinny canes with three or four leaves. Only time will tell, but at least none of them have any competition from other plants very close to them. I really have no idea what will happen at this point, and if things don't go well I may just order more roses from the ARE in the fall when there will be a good variety of roses to choose from. With their large size those would just about be guaranteed to do well, all other things being equal. I hope that at least my Grandmother's Hat from RVR will survive and prosper as it's not available from the ARE and that's one rose I badly want to have.