Climbing Roses In A Container Garden
If you love climbing roses (who wouldn't?) but you don't have any actual land to call your own, not to worry, you can grow climbing roses in containers, you just have to be a bit more patient and have slightly lower expectations. My lovely pink climbing roses have finally started to reach the height I was dreaming of when I planted them……(9 years ago!) and it is truly exciting. And as you can see, the clusters of blooms are truly lovely.
I have a large built-in trough shaped planter (about 3 stories above any actual ground) next to our entrance courtyard that holds three standard rose bushes and two climbing roses. Granted that was a bit too packed for this size planter, but everyone seems happy enough. Well except for the poor standard rose that got burned when a teenager threw the can of tuna he was trying to smoke into my garden in a moment of panic……but that is another story. Some of the boys have this thing for roasted tuna that is roasted right in the can! Inventive I must say, but hopefully not something anyone will be doing anytime soon near my precious plants, not to mention that the fire succeeded in burning through some of the hoses for my watering system as well……all in the life of a container garden that is located on a public walkway.
Anyway, enough tuna talk, back to those roses.
If you've been dreaming of an arched rose covered gate, or even a trellis, you can do it! If you want good coverage I would advise purchasing at least 2 bushes as the two I have did not grow equally, one is very tall and one is not, go figure. Also, one should ask how to prune climbing roses, something that I myself am not certain about. And since one of my branches was apparently bothering someone (possibly the municipal sweeping guy) someone came along and simply pruned off a huge tall branch without even asking, another shock to my roses, but I've since recovered.
Before you decide to buy roses, do be aware that aphids and this white dusty stuff are very likely to infest your roses, especially every spring, and if that is something you can't tolerate I'd advise staying away from roses altogether rather than spending precious time trying to get rid of the little creatures (who can be quite numerous), in a non toxic way of course. If other rose bushes in your neighborhood are infested, yours likely will be too, and some types of roses are more likely to get aphids, so keep that in mind as well.
Of course, if you have your heart set on roses, then of course, go for it, I'll be the first one to encourage you! Happy gardening!
