Hi everyone . . . I am such a newbie. I bought two Tournament of Roses tree roses at Costco on Sunday. I had this vision of them in large pots sitting on the edge of the blacktop driveway. I have also bought a number of pots for lisanthias which are coming from Burpies. Anyway - everything I read about the roses and the lisanthias talks about how they love heat . . . and I thought in New England placing the pots so that on their south side they face green lawn would be good for the plants. (You see I don't really have a sun garden for these sun loving plants and DH is not likely to sacrifice more of his green lawn LOL)
But, some very good people on the rose forum have warned me (1) not to put the roses into too big a pot, and (2) that the radiant heat from the driveway is likely to kill the roses - and I suppose the lisanthias as well . . . sigh.
I had this wonderful vision of this line of various height pots on the edge of the driveway, with these great tree roses on either end . . .
Is there anyway I can successfully do this and not kill my plants - or do you advise me to rethink what I am doing?
What would you do?
Cheers,
Seandor
help! newbie and tree rose in a container
They're right that you shouldn't plant roses (or anything else) in a plant that's too large, but what you could do is put the rose in an appropriate sized pot, then put that pot inside the bigger one, that way you'll get the look you want but the rose will be in a pot size that it likes.
As far as the driveway, is there a way you could raise the pots up a bit so they're a bit farther from the surface of the driveway? I would also put the plants themselves in light colored pots rather than dark ones, that should help a little, the containers will also absorb heat during the day and if you get really hot weather, a dark container sitting in the sun all day absorbing heat can be too much for the plants, and adding in the heat from the driveway on top of that will just make things worse. But a light colored pot plus raising the pots up off the driveway a bit might work.
You might get some good ideas and information here, this is a growing trend in the city of Chicago.
http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/strategies/greenroofs.html
It sounds like I have to do something about the driveway - you see, I can't have a sun garden because where the sun falls all day long is where we have our camper parked. And there is no sense owning a camper unless you can get at it and place it on the truck. So, I must put my sun plants in pots on the driveway - but they have to be portable so when we want the camper we can get to it readily.
I wonder if I could put something down on the driveway - I know others have suggest cement blocks - we may have a few of those kicking around behind the garage. They are not too expensive so I could pick up a few of those.
I like the idea of a smaller pot inside a bigger pot - it's just that the catalogue shows these roses in a 20" deep pot and that seems way too small for me . . .
Thanks PrairiegirlZ5 - So if those plants don't fry - maybe I can rig up something that doesn't fry my plants :-)
Oops. That is not the link I wanted to post, I'll keep looking. What I was going for was something about containers on rooftops, as they would have similar growing conditions as your (or my) asphalt driveway. :-)