On 12 Sep 2003 17:50:15 -0700, (Pam) wrote:

Howdy all,

Just wondering, I live in an apartment and adore miniture roses.
Well, don't have alot of luck with them other than about six months of
blooms and then they die off. I land up getting aggrivated at my
husband for pruning them back too much and a few months later he
replaces it feeling guilty. Any suggestions for helping them to
survive without my sweetheart going through the "YOU KILLED IT" speech
yet again? Thanks in advance.


Pam

You'll keep getting the speech until you realize that miniature roses
aren't indoor plants.

If I were you, I'd buy them and keep them inside for about 2 weeks to
a month. Then, when they start getting barren, take them outside and
plant them in an apartment manager-approved location near your
apartment.

Water and feed them regularly and pretty soon, you'll have a nice
little garden that you can call your own.

Roses pretty much can't survive indoors though. A compromise would be
if you have an outdoor deck or patio. Make sure they spend a lot of
time on the patio.

Keep in mind that this will work until winter. Then you're going to
have to find a way to protect them in the pots. You can plant them in
a hole in the pot, or you can temporarily plant them in the ground
until spring. They will look dead, but roses go dormant. This inn't to
say that you might not kill them, but they should come back in the
spring if you take care of them. Alternately, you can leave them in
toe pots, but you'll have to wrap the pots in insulating material,
unless you live in Florida, south Texas, or parts of SoCal where it
rarely freezes.