What is going on with my roses?

[Ilovesoutherncomfort]

I love roses but only have a patio garden so they are in pots.
I have researched how to care for them and how to prune them?
This year the flowers are lovely but what on earth is going on with the stems? All spindly and they can’t support the weight of the flower heads.
Have attached photos.

Do you feed them? Why doesn’t the one in the second pic have any leaves?

Following as I have several like this. I was assuming it was because I hadn’t pruned them; I have another climbing one that I pruned and it’s magnificent.

I don’t think roses do well in pots after a year or two. If you can’t plant them in the ground then look for much bigger pots. You’ll need decent compost and manure to ensure nutrients. Regular feed with rose food and I swear by chopped up banana skins in the soil too. If these are climbing roses then the long growing branches need to be positioned horizontally so that new shoots form to grow upwards.

edited to add: the only rose I have successfully grown in a ‘pot’ is in a half barrel, just to give you an idea of the size needed. Roses are hungry buggers and like to spread their roots far!

My roses have spindly stems this year but we have had non stop rain so I put it down to that.

@Horseebooks I have no idea. I thought the same. It just grew like that!

@ShinyBandana they aren’t climbing roses. I always buy from David Austin and put them in the biggest pots I can get with rose and shrub compost. Does that contain manure?

@Tinkerbot non stop rain here too.

They all look like they’re hanging their gorgeous heads in shame!

Two of mine are like this now. Always been fine in previous years. At least I know it isn’t just me so thank you!

A lot of roses droop like that when the flowers get heavy with rainwater.

I don’t know about that compost, I’m afraid. I usually add something like this

Whoops. Like this….

How did you prune them?

David Austin English shrub roses have particularly heavy and ruffled flower heads. They are best when you prune them over 2/3 years properly to create a "scaffold" of really strong growth which is strong enough to hold the heads up.

Also, I think that roses either want to be in the ground, or in very large containers (half whisky barrel size). Your compost is fine, but you'll need to feed with a slow release fertiliser and keep well watered for best results as roses want rich, clay soil.

David Austen has pruning instructions on his web site. For shrub roses remove any stem thinner than a pencil.