"Pam" wrote in message
om...
Howdy,

Well I guess that mini roses are a popular subject! I am growing
them outside on a screened in patio area and as you can tell I am in
the Tampa Bay area. Know enough about protecting (bringing in) if we
get a frost which is not very often. I am more concerned about the
hot weather killing it off than the cold. If anyone has info on that
please keep me updated, always trying to pick up as much info as I can
about growing the little beauties.

Thanks in advance.
Pam

Hi Pam,

I grow a lot of the roses at my house in pots and they are mostly minis and
patio roses! I always pot them up into bigger pots than the ones I buy them
in. This helps to make sure they do not dry out too quickly in hot weather
and sometimes it is an indication that a rose needs to be potted up into a
bigger pot again if a particular roses is struggling with heat when the
others are doing fine.

I do find that the roses in pots need more care and attention for both
fungal diseases, watering and feeding than do the roses in the ground. Just
yesterday morning I watered most of the roses but I skipped a HT in a large
pot because I thought it had enough water. I came home yesterday afternoon
and its flower was all limp from not enough water and the heat. I gave it a
very good water (both the pot and the flower) and this morning the flower
has perked up again.

While in the last 18 months of growing minis in pots, I'm sure there have
been times when I have not watered them enough in hot weather, I have not
had one die on me. They may have stopped flowering in the hotter periods but
they certainly came back when the weather got cooler. I think even in pots,
roses can be quite resilient.

I also have slow release Osmocote for Roses in all my pots and some lucerne
hay to keep the moisture in the pots and add nutrients as it breaks down. It
is good advice to regularly feed roses in pots every fortnight with a liquid
fertiliser. I would like to say that I liquid feed my roses every fortnight
with seaweed and fish emulsion however I just don't seem to be that
organised - it is generally every month or so that I liquid feed

Happy rose growing,

Kirra
Brisbane, Australia
z10