Weak ,scraggly roses

akinchokane

i have 2 DA patio roses in pots.bThe plants are now in their 3rd year,but seem weak and spindly although have plenty of buds which droop when opened. I am not sure what is wrong with them. I fed them with granular slow releas rose food several weeks ago and give them a good watering every few days. I didn’t prune them this year. Could this be the problem?

peteS

I've a few DA roses, and this is the fourth summer they have been in the ground, and likewise, for the first three years when I was feeding them and giving them a manure mulch, they were very floppy (apart from Gertrude Jekyll, which has been magnificent from the off) This year, I pruned them as usual down to a third, but just fed them without adding any manure. Now they are all shooting up and growing more upright on much thicker stronger stems than they have previously.

amancalledgeorge

Probably would be worth mentioning which Austin roses are they...they really don't produce any pure patio toses...some of them are just slightly smaller and can be grown in pots. Their self styled English roses are by nature soft shaped and meant to be planted in the ground as far as I know. Probably better off with other types of rose for pot growing so they keep a more compact and restrained shape like hybrid tea roses. 

Obelixx

@Marlorena know a lot about all sorts of roses and reckons DA roses take 3 years to firm up and get going and some varieties take longer tha others.  EG, I have a William Shakespeare which turns out to be wussy and a Munstead Wood which is very floppy but getting firmer this year (so far) whereas Queen of Sweden has always been firm and upright.

Which ones do you have?