PP ... you are right. I should have qualified what I wrote.
When I was growing my roses in San Diego, better known as Rose Heaven, I did have a container garden, but I had many friends who could grow their roses in the ground. I had noticed that when they planted the roses they grew in containers into the ground, those roses seemed to take off better and appeared to be stronger plants. However, the bare root plants planted directly into the ground in that climate caught up quickly. In San Diego, Mother Nature was very kind and did not give the plants much stress.
The post I wrote to Cindi was more of a response to her descriptions of how the climate in her garden impacted her roses. My garden in the mountains is a LOT less rose friendly than I had experienced in San Diego. So, I should have qualified that response to say, "When you are growing roses in a less than rose friendly climate .... "
Early on, I had to remove some roses from this garden simply because they did not do well in the high summer temps. I don't have the cold hardiness issues that those in colder zones may experience and never have to deal with roses that have winter die back. However, because of the heat, some roses go summer dormant.
When I removed some of those roses, I found that they really did not have a vigorous root system. Those roses were put into the ground with a smaller root mass than those of later years.
The conclusions I posted were arrived at by observing what is going on in my garden up here and other rose gardens of friends up here. At first, I was the only one who made sure to grow roots before planting. Some of my other friends up here experimented and they, too, found this practice gave their roses a better start in our climate.
I guess it truly depends upon where you are gardening as to whether or not you need to give the plant more time to grow roots.
