I've never been a rose girl. Too prickly, too high maintenance and too short of a blooming season. But, my mom loves them. And, when I planted her garden, she begged for beautiful climbing roses like we had when I was a kid at our old house. The only problem with that is I've never grown them and I had no idea if it would work in a pot. So, we struck a deal. She would get basic roses in a container and I would use this summer to experiment on growing a climbing rose in a container.
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| My Mom's White Roses |
This year's lucky winner is called a "Jacob's Ladder" climbing rose. I planted in a large plastic container by itself and gave it a little bit of support with a metal frame. Planting it was indeed prickly, but we managed to fit in the frame and pot without bruising its fragile stems too badly. It's the only plant I actually wear my gardening gloves to prune. I didn't use any special fertilizer nor did I look up any amazing tips on how to garden climbing roses in a container. So, I pretty much just got lucky when the first blooms appeared.
And even luckier, when the tiny buds opened up into these stunners ....
Unfortunately, the blooms only lasted a couple of weeks. We had plenty of new growth, but no buds. I thought perhaps it was just a short bloomer, but my mom's rose still had buds and I've seen plenty of roses blooming around town. So, now, I may be forced to do my research. However, this morning I was excited to spot this little guy. I also bought some special rose fertilizer and will have to give it a shot to see if it speeds things along. Only time will tell if this experiment was a success (and I have no idea how we are going to winterize this baby), but so far it's been a lot less painless than I feared and I have to say roses were not nearly as scary I as I thought.
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