"Matt" wrote in message
om...
I hope you all can help me with my questions about rose growing.
First some probally needed information:

I'm not making a rose garden, just a place where I can give the roses
away.
I'm in Central Florida.

Now for the questions:

------------ General Questions: ------------

1) What kind of roses are these,
http://www.2dozenroses.com/Merchant2...01/25redSP.jpg ?


Florist hybrid tea roses, which are generally much more fussy than regular
garden variety hybrid teas, which are darn fussy to begin with. Especially
in a climate like Florida that promotes lots of fungal diseases, which roses
are prone to.

2) I was read that they need the sun but if given to hot of the sun
(mid to late afternoon) it is also not good. So it's good to have
them in spots of sunshine during hot days?


They need at least 6 hours of sun to do well. Shade during the afternoon
heat is best, so maybe you can site them on the east side of your house.


------------ If they will grow in pots: ------------
1) What are the requirements for them to be able to grow in the pots?

A LOT more care. Pots dry out really quickly and the roots heat up a lot
more than do roses in the ground. Therefore, you need a really big pot.
24"-36" in diameter in a warm climate, if not larger. Roses will grow a lot
larger in warm climates with long growing seasons than they do in colder
climates. They'll need watering every day, or twice daily, and feeding
every week, and spraying for disease every week.

2) What is the coldest temperature I can leave them outside, and will
they be able to grow if I bring them inside and they still have
sunlight on them?

It'll never get cold enough anywhere in FL to worry about winter damage to
them. Roses don't grow well at all indoors. They are subject to many more
problems and can even be killed by the spider mites, which are the plague of
indoor rose growers. You'd need supplemental High Intensity Discharge
lighting as well. That's expensive. Very.

------------ If they won't grow in pots: ------------

1) What preperations do I need to make where the will be planted? How
big will the space need to be?

In a sandy soil, you'll need to add lots and lots and lots of organic
matter, like compost. Buying a dumptruck load is the best thing in the long
run. You'll need it. How much space you'll need will depend on the
varieties you choose. YOu could cram 3 plants in a 5x10 bed, but like I
said, roses grow much larger in warm season climates, and they'll be crowded
by fall.

If you can answer any of these questions it will be greatly
appreciated!!


If all you want to do is to give the occasional flower to a loved one, it's
much much cheaper just to go to the florist and buy them. For that 5x10
bed, it'll take at least 50 bags of cheap dollar home depot compost to amend
most FL sandy soil, and it'll also take about 5 bags of $3 mulch. The roses
themselves will need to be on Fortuniana rootstock in Florida, or they won't
last, and fortuniana is a lot more expensive than traditional rootstock
varieties. That'll be about $25 apiece for the plants. You'll need to
fertilize. That's $10 for a 50 lb sack of alfalfa, and $10 for a box of
Miracle Grow.. YOu'll need to spray *every week* religiously in order to
prevent disease. That's at least another $40 for funginex and mancozeb.
You won't like the residue that mancozeb leaves, so add another $10 for a
bottle of liquid seaweed to add to the mix to disguise the residue. We
haven't discussed the cost of water yet. Roses like a LOT of water. Figure
at least another $10 per month during the active growing season from APril
through November. And, you won't be able to harvest all of the roses.
Nope. Cutting off all of the roses you grow cuts back on the foliage that
makes the plant energy with which to bloom. And, they won't be in bloom
constantly either. For the first year, figure you might get 25 blooms over
the season from each of your 3 plants. You don't want to harvest more than
10% of the first year roses anyway. That's 7 or 8 blooms that you can
harvest over the whole season and give to someone--when they are actually
blooming, which is in flushes every 6-8 weeks. So far, that makes each of
those 8 blooms cost $36 *each*. It does get better. The next year, the
plants will bloom a lot more, say 3 times as much, and you can harvest 25%
of their blooms before adversely affecting their growth. But, you'll still
need to spend money on mulch, fertilizer, water, and fungicides. So, for the
56 blooms you can harvest in year 2, they'll only cost you roughly $3 each.
Not too bad! And, year three, it gets better, as the plants will age and
produce even more blooms, say 150 over the whole season, making each of the
roses you cut cost you only $1. But, you never want to harvest more than a
third of the blooms during any one flush, as it will retard future bloom
production too much because you also will be cutting off foliage--the energy
factories. But, by year 3, you are hooked, and you'll be wanting to dig up
more ground so you can have more roses!

Growing roses is one of those things that you have to enjoy the process as
much or even more than the results. If you don't, you won't do it for long.
Thanks!