It is best practice to move roses when they are dormant (ie. no leaves) in winter when they almost do not notice they are being moved. Cold soil is not a problem as they will not start into growth again until the soil starts to warm up.
I wouldn’t attempt to wash out all the soil either, you will disturb all the fine feeder roots, better to just get it out as whole as you can and plant it in a well-prepared hole with a spade-full of well-rotted manure and one of compost mixed well in, and they will sort themselves out. The only reason for washing off the soil is if you are ‘bare rooting’ the plant, which is a different technique, used mainly by rose growers when they are digging up plants to send out to customers. Thats my thinking anyway, what do others think?
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
The winter thing makes sense now, plus it will be a good way to break my fair weather gardening habit too. Hopefully we'll have a few nice days between Christmas and New Year to get all of this done.
the root mass will be a big solid tangle inside the pot. i asked to wash out all soil so you can squeeze out roots with that small opening without breaking pot. It still may not be easy!
..sorry, but I'll be very surprised if that rose can be removed - in reasonable condition - from that pot come winter, when it may well be pot bound.. the roots cling to the sides of the pot and one has little choice but to damage the rootball considerably... if one loses patience, out comes the hammer to finish the job.. ...or if the pot is plastic then one has to cut it away as I did with this large pot.. it proved impossible to get the rose out, so the pot had to be cut down the sides..and this is fairly straight sided..
...even a very small rose like this one... a miniature in comparison to The Pilgrim, was not easy, and I think this pot is roughly the same size as Brixton's... fortunately it came out ok as the pot internally is quite straight, and the rose was young, this after just 6 months in the pot..
...it's the shape of that pot that's the problem, so, you might have to start again with your rose, if the roots are damaged a lot.. that's all I'm saying really...
...there is a 3rd way which I've also done myself... if you cannot get the rose out the pot in one piece, and you think you may have to bash the pot... then you could try instead to either drill holes in the bottom of the pot or attempt to bash the bottom of the pot in, without damaging the rest of the pot [it may come apart anyway]… if a large enough hole can be made at the base and it would need to be more or less the complete base of the pot removed, you could then place the pot over soil in the garden, with an obelisk, and leave the rose in the pot... the roots will then work their way downwards and grow out the bottom into soil.. so it will look like a potted rose, but you will have a much larger and healthier rose as a result, because it won't be pot bound... and no one will know you've removed the base...
I only say what I've already tried, it does work but I've only done it with plastic pots whereby the base can be easily cut out... it's dicey with terracotta or ceramic pots.. I intended to do it with that big black pot but decided I didn't want to keep it anyway..
@Marlorena - I think I'm right in saying that roses can be planted (or bought) from pots at any time of the year, if the root ball is not much disturbed. I guess it depends which has more personal value - the pot or the rose. You may have to destroy one or the other.
Yes @Fire... potted roses are best planted end of May onwards usually... If the pot in question is of personal value, then yes it's better to damage the rose roots.. it wouldn't hurt if you have to hack away at them and are only left with about 6 inches of roots, that's not a disaster, it could be planted that way with the top growth pruned down to about 1 foot.. effectively starting again with a virtually new rose..
I recently removed a sizeable Gertrude Jekyll climbing rose from a very large straight sided container. It had been in there about a year. As the container was huge, and the rose not that old, I thought I would be able to remove it without too much difficulty. Nope! It took both me and my OH all of our strength to dislodge the rose, the roots had gripped the sides of the container like it was cemented in. Once we finally freed it, the size of the root mass was unbelievable.
As that is a very lovely looking container, I personally would try to remove the rose as best you can when it’s dormant and cut it back to 1 foot as Marlorena suggested.
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The winter thing makes sense now, plus it will be a good way to break my fair weather gardening habit too. Hopefully we'll have a few nice days between Christmas and New Year to get all of this done.
...or if the pot is plastic then one has to cut it away as I did with this large pot.. it proved impossible to get the rose out, so the pot had to be cut down the sides..and this is fairly straight sided..
...even a very small rose like this one... a miniature in comparison to The Pilgrim, was not easy, and I think this pot is roughly the same size as Brixton's... fortunately it came out ok as the pot internally is quite straight, and the rose was young, this after just 6 months in the pot..
...it's the shape of that pot that's the problem, so, you might have to start again with your rose, if the roots are damaged a lot.. that's all I'm saying really...
I only say what I've already tried, it does work but I've only done it with plastic pots whereby the base can be easily cut out... it's dicey with terracotta or ceramic pots.. I intended to do it with that big black pot but decided I didn't want to keep it anyway..
If the pot in question is of personal value, then yes it's better to damage the rose roots.. it wouldn't hurt if you have to hack away at them and are only left with about 6 inches of roots, that's not a disaster, it could be planted that way with the top growth pruned down to about 1 foot.. effectively starting again with a virtually new rose..