If you grow roses in a container, aim for a neutral pH potting soil. Acidic potting soil like the green bag MiracleGro (pH of 6.5) encourages blackspots. Alkalinity discourages fungal growth, and if your soil is alkaline like mine, put a small amount in the potting soil for beneficial bacteria and to increase the pH.

My 13 band-size roses are in Organic MiracleGro potting soil (neutral pH of 7), mixed with a small amount of garden soil, so it's pH is now 7.2. None of them have fungal diseases, including the mini roses (very disappointing TINY).

I recommend Austin roses for containers since they are more disease-resistant than hybrid teas. Mary Magadelene is 1' x 1.5', 100% healthy, and has this magnificant cozy myrrh scent that floats into your window. Grace, Lady Emma Hamilton, Munstead Wood, William Shakespeare, Ambridge rose, Pretty Jessica, Princess Alexandre of Kent are all cute and fragrant in a container. Some of these make good cut flowers too.

strawberry, I don't mean to be rude, but I find it somewhat disturbing at times when you declare certain "universal truths" about rose gardening when I have never heard any experts or master gardeners assert any such "truths."

If you know of experts who have established beyond a doubt that acidity encourages blackspot and alkalinity discourages blackspot, please do cite them and I will profusely apologize for questioning your assertion.

If your statements are based only or mainly on your own very limited experiments in your own garden, please realize that that proves nothing. In the world of science, that would be considered "anecdotal" evidence, not hard evidence. You may have accidentally stumbled onto something in your own garden, but you should realize that that situation needs to be checked out by many other informed horticulturalists who would need to replicate your "success" many, many times--maybe hundreds of times and in many different geographies and growing conditions--before it could be asserted, with the confidence of a valid general rule, that alkalinity discourages blackspot, etc.

In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with you sharing your personal beliefs and experience about such matters--as long as you add qualifying words such as "in my personal experience" or "in my personal opinion" or "I personally have found in my own garden that. . . " or some such phrase that takes the unproven assertion out of the realm of a recognized and accepted universal truth in the gardening community--because I don't think it is.

I want to emphasize that I really admire your eagerness to try out and experiment with various possibilities, but what one amateur discovers on her own is not the equivalent of a professionally researched and verified truth based on many such experiments and double-checked by other experts in the field. I think that just changing the phrasing a bit to make it reflect your own personal beliefs is all that is needed.

And, I repeat, if I'm mistaken on any of this, I will apologize profusely for sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong.

Kate

MojaveLove, if I understood you correctly about pruners being on your list of things to get, make sure you purchase bypass pruners, NOT the anvil type (which crush rose canes instead of cleanly slicing through them.)

Good luck with your first potted rose. Have a good time choosing! :-)

Kate - I always reported on MY GARDEN only. But if people are interested in general research on pH and fungal growth - here's the report:

Contrasting Soil pH Effects on Fungal and Bacterial Growth

1. 1Department of Microbial Ecology, Lund University, Ecology Building, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden
2. 2Soil Science Department, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire ALS 2JQ, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
The influence of pH on the two principal decomposer groups in soil, fungi and bacteria, was investigated along a continuous soil pH gradient at Hoosfield acid strip at Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom. This experimental location provides a uniform pH gradient, ranging from pH 8.3 to 4.0, within 180 m in a silty loam soil. .. The growth-based measurements revealed a fivefold decrease in bacterial growth and a fivefold increase in fungal growth with lower pH. .. Below pH 4.5 there was universal inhibition of all microbial variables.
1. www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/faqs/azaleafaq2.html
Black spot of rose. If the disease is ... Black spot, caused by the fungus Diplocarpon rosae (imperfect stage. Marssonina ... Conidial germination is optimum at 64� to 78�F (18� to 26�C). ... The soil reaction (pH) should be between 5.5 and 6.5. e. ...
web.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/pdf_pubs/610.pdf

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil pH effects on Fungal and Bacterial Growth

The above link didn't go through. This second link should work.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil pH effects on Fungal and Bacterial Growth

IN MY EXPERIENCE ONLY in the Soil and Compost forum, one of the basics in composting is NOT to put citrus fruits in there. I violated that one time: putting strawberries, lemon rinds, and cantaloupe rinds in my compost. They all became moldy.

So I did a pH test using red cabbage juice as pH indicator: banana peels is neutral (safe for compost), lemon rinds is very acidic (nearly pink like vinegar), cantaloupe rind is acidic, but watermelon rind is neutral. The above is from MY COMPOST ONLY.

Two very informative articles, strawberry, but I cannot find where the first article refers to "blackspot," so I don't think it is legitimate to conclude that that info. on soil PH translates into "acidity encourages blackspot" and "alkalinity discourages blackspot." The article no where makes such statements.

The second article is on blackspot, but I can find no where in it where it refers to the negative or positive effects of soil PH on encouraging or discouraging blackspot, so once again, I don't think it is safe to conclude from this article that there is a direct connection between soil PH and blackspot on roses.

There may (or may not) be a connection between the two that has not yet been proven by scientific studies, but until that happens, we still can NOT safely conclude that soil PH affects blackspot--in my reading, at least. : )

Kate

Can I suggest that Mojaves questions could be answered in a more friendly and less debating method?

Maybe dublinbay-Kate, would like to start her own thread on why soil ph is not important for rose growers with blackspot or fungal issues. This would be a good place for Kate to post links to her source of information. Rather than hijacking and making further searches for information on the subject hard to find.

Enjoy the new roses Mojave, I know I am! (and off to repot a rose in the biggest pot I can find-in rose mix and our native soil)

Hi Kate: every one is free to entitled to their own opinion in this forum, and I respect and appreciate your opinion on that matter. I'm glad that there is no "thought-police" to suppress freedom of speech here.

There's the Cornell formula of baking soda (pH of 9) for blackspot spray. As to putting a bit of garden soil into the potting mix, that's Douglas Green's idea, who wrote the book "Tender Roses for Tough Climate" - the idea is to put beneficial bacteria into potting soil.

mmmm, I am especially glad there are no thought police as I would probably have been shown the door many times over.
Strawbs, I have heard the no citrus rule many times but just as many refutations of it. Personally, I compost practically everything which has been alive at any stage - which includes woolly jumpers, hair and feathers....and citrus fruits. I do not compost cooked meats (although I would have few compunctions about burying it, but only as a rat prevention. I think you would need to add hundreds of citrus fruits at once to seriously affect the ph of a compost heap. What are your thoughts about peeing on a heap? I only ask because I admitted to this practice and the whole class of horticulture students shrieked as though I had been disembowelling infants rather than modestly peeing in a bucket (Mr.Camps can just stand there and aim, grrrr)
Visited the soil forum a few times and yep, they really are a contentious lot - the rose folk are the epitome of genteel and mannerly behaviour as far as i can see (excepting myself on a bad day).

Made me laugh!

I'm all for free speech also--which is why I think I should be allowed to supply an alternative view to the newbie so that the newbie, who might not have enough info on the subject to know when or when not to question the advice, will know that it is NOT generally accepted in the rose community and among professional horticulturalists that PH encourages or discourages blackspot. I don't think we should mislead newbies on such matters.

As to the other issues brought up by a couple posters, I have no opinion on those matters, but you should feel free to debate them among yourselves. My one and only reservation has ONLY to do with the idea that PH encourages/discourages blackspot. It does not, as far as I know, nor have I yet seen any evidence that the professional community believes there is a connection.

However, if you thought I was objecting to having good soil, why would I object to good soil? Nothing I said even remotely suggests I disapprove of good soil.

I'll sign off now. Didn't mean to get others in an uproar.

And welcome to the newbie, mojave. I think you will find growing a rose is easier than growing a tomato plant, at least according to several of my gardening friends.

Kate

Hello everyone - thanks for the replies! The pH side of it is interesting and I will look into it. I've heard the same argument for indoor potted plants.

Thankfully I didn't end up getting a pruner yet. The plant was $40, a lot more than I was expecting so I'll get the right pruner in a few weeks or so.

I was pretty surprised at the lack of choices. There were 10-15 different roses however once you take out the Knock Outs (which I didn't want, just my preference), the trailers, the climbers, the very tall hybrid teas and reds and one orange (don't like those colors) I had about 3 choices. None of them yellow or white which I wanted lol.

I ended up with a pink Easy Elegance called Kiss Me. It was one of two own root plants and it was the same size as all the grafted ones so I went with the own root. As soon as I got home though, it started raining! So until tomorrow it is sitting by the patio doors. Anyone else have it? How well does it bloom throughout the season? It was one thing I couldn't find on their tag. Help Me Find says it has two flushes and then sporadic blooms afterwards.

It's kind of awkwardly growing to one side.

{{gwi:250930}}

Also, what's this? This plant was the healthiest looking of all but there's also this.

{{gwi:250931}}

Here is a link that might be useful: link to album

pH stuff very interesting, thank you. Soil people contentious, eh? Well, some of you here at the Rose Forum may recall The Great Forum Foliar Feeding War of 1999. Now THAT was vicious. Spectacular conflagration. People banned all over the place. Ah, good times... (not)

Back to basics (my comfort zone): MojaveLove - As a lazy but ever-experimental rose person, I like to try anything that smacks of less labor for greater results. Last season I tried a pre-mixed bag of blood and bone + potash, Yes, I know that it's easy enough to mix your own, but this Betty Crocker-style all-in-one sounded even better. Results were amazingly good. Empirical data only goes to far as comparing four bareroot Paroles from one bareroot order, two with the mix, two without. Striking visible difference in the growth and bloom of the two sets of test roses. Long and short of it: You might wish to add some potash to your shopping list, or get a bag of 5-1 premixed stuff.

What rose(s)are you leaning toward at the moment, btw? Colour? Fragrance? Like a few firsts in life, you never forget your first rose ;-)

I want the Julia Child but I don't have room for it :(

I love the old rose look, compact, very fragrant, max number of petals possible, always in bloom, light green foliage, yellow or white or "sunset" colors. And no maintenance at all but that last one is not realistic! But hey, if I'm dreaming...lol

I'm with you on "keep things easy".

Looks like you got a lovely rose, MojaveLove! That small amount of leaf damage doesn't look like much of anything I've ever seen before and could have been caused by something it encountered in handling. Unless it begins to spread on to more leaves I wouldn't worry about it.

Alkalinity does not discourage blackspot in roses. It WILL encourage chlorosis. Roses generally prefer a soil pH that is acidic, NOT alkaline.

Comparing the correction of a misstatement to the Thought Police is unfair. Evoking that emotional response, however, could serve the purpose of making people think twice before pointing out those errors.

I just find the "logic" provided to be so....illogical.

Soil should be alkaline because citrus fruits cause mold and your cabbage proves it because of baking soda?

Good lord, if we haven't talked enough on here about throwing cake ingredients all over our foliage.

If Kate or I came here & said that insecticides increase healthy bee populations on our blooms, IN OUR BACKYARD, would everyone nod or would someone's head explode?

Made me laugh, indeed.

Back to the question in the original post--
I've never heard of or done root pruning, but then I don't have any roses growing in pots. I know there are quite a few folks here who DO successfully grow roses in containers. I know that mini's would be quite lovely in pots and it is possible to find some that have scent.

Hopefully a couple of the folks that containter-grow their roses will chime in soon. I know the 2 biggest questions are usually: Which rose are you trying to grow in a container(answered), and What size is your container?