The Potted Gardener: Roses are perfect plants for pots too

Not often thought of as a container plant, but an excellent option for small gardens, is the ever popular scented rose.

Roses are easy to grow and will thrive in most pots providing there is good drainage and they are watered regularly.

All you need is a sunny location and enough room for a large container and you can transform a patio, terrace or balcony into a floral retreat full of colour and fragrance.

Choosing the right rose is important – compact varieties with a long flowering season grow well in containers – they just need a sturdy, good sized pot to live in full of good quality potting compost.

Roses need regular feeding which will increase the amount of blooms they produce and will also improve their resistance to pests, although some roses will require spraying to combat aphids and mildew

Pruning is essential as it shapes the plant and helps control insects and disease and it’s also important to remove dead heads as this improves flowering over a longer period of time.

You should re-pot every two to three years to refresh the soil and if your rose isn’t flower as much as it used to then transplant it to a larger container.

If you are replacing old roses with new ones, ensure that all the old soil is removed and replaced with fresh.

The Royal Horticultural Society has picked out five roses that are best for containers.

Laura Ford is a patio climber that has lots of small, double, deep yellow flowers.

Magic Carpet is a ground cover variety that has pretty, wide, semi-double flowers in mauve, lilac and lavender with a light spicy scent.

Nice Day is a patio climbing rose with gorgeously scented coral-pink flowers that bloom repeatedly throughout the summer and autumn.

Robin Redbreast a miniature rose with dark green foliage and bright red, single flowers with yellow centres that produces good rosehips in the autumn.

Sweet Dream a past Rose of the Year short, standard bushy rose that has apricot-peach flowers with masses of petals.

For an instant rose garden that you can enjoy throughout the summer buy a selection of different sized pots, plant them with a varieties of roses and then place them together in a group.

Simple, but stunning.

n Sara Milne is a consumer director and horticulture lead for Clareville PR in London