EasyBloom Forum

Hi, I have recently purchased a white iceberg rose. When it was in the pot it was doing just fine, but once planted in the soil started getting yellow leaves more and more and stopped blooming. I was trying to find it in the flower data base, but EasyBloom doesn't have it.

Hey Maria...Oh, the rose! Queen of the flowers! :) I love roses! They are stunningly beautiful. They do take a little bit of care, but they are rather resilient otherwise. I like roses so much that my PhD research was almost solely based on rose production. My rose research took place in greenhouses and artificial growth chambers where I could specifically manipulate the environment around the roses. Every time I planned research where I would transfer roses between either the growth chamber and the greenhouses or if I was merely repotting the roses, I would have to add about 2-3 weeks time to the beginning of the research proposal to allow for rose acclimation. When the environment around a rose drastically changes, they can go into shock and can start dropping leaves. Especially if you repot a rose. When you repot any plant, one will invariably damage the roots even with the utmost care. After a repotting the rose can recognize that there is an imbalance of roots as compared to the shoots (shoots equals stems and leaves). Since there are no longer the roots to support the above ground parts of the plant, the plant can sacrifice some parts to keep the growth going. If I had to guess, I would assume that the leaves that turned yellow and probably eventually dropped from your rose were at the bottom of the plant (the oldest leaves). The rose is removing the nutrients from those leaves (which is why they turn yellow) and then moving the nutrients to the new and growing parts of the plant. Also, flowering is an "expensive" process in the plant world. If there is some type of stress, the plant may stop flowering until that stress passes. (Note: not all plants work this way...some may flower due to a stress.)

Having said all that I would also like to point out that, it is currently October and cold weather is fast approaching (if not already here for many parts of the nation). Roses are semi-evergreen plants. In other words they will drop their leaves and go dormant in winter, but if the temperatures are warm enough they will not drop their leaves and continue producing through winter if they can be kept warm. This is how roses are available for Valentine's Day in February, in the dead of winter. Those roses are grown in greenhouses or shipped in from South America. I suspect that your rose may have received a double shock of transplantation and colder weather recently. I would not be too concerned though. Like I said earlier, roses are very resilient. If the yellowing continues to happen as temperatures dip, just feel good that the rose is sequestering those valuable nutrients in the leaves so that when spring comes around it can have a flush of new growth. I hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have any further questions. Happy Gardening!!! Robby