Bagged Rose Potting Mix v Homemade,

In Doug's NSW Rose, there is a very interesting piece on re potting roses. Doug recommends a mix of potting mix and River sand 3/1; plus: blood and bone, cow manure and compost.

I'm wondering if it is better to mix your own or are the commercially mixes just as good?!

I have recently (yesterday) bought Debco rose potting mix.

The way Doug does it , is that he knows what is in his mix and can control the mixture ratio as to how he wants it. From there he can pick and chooses the ratio that he has experimented with for the best results.
With package mix, what you see is what you get...you don't know exactly the mix, maybe they might put whats in it, but not ratio exactly....

I always chuck a bit of poo an mine and mulch the top too.

There are standards and standards, on the bag it will have so many ticks, when we do buy mix we go for the less costly one and add to it, Doug's mix sounds like it would work on a lot of plants not only roses. We also buy bulk one tonne and mix it to suit.

Over the years I have tried various combinations of elements that can be used in potting mix the potting mix formula given by Sue  in her post is the one I have found to be the one that works best for me. Originally I used garden soil mix and that was a disaster as after a couple of years it compacted and the roses just wouldn't grow. I had four City of Newcastle in pots containing soil and for a long period they were stunted and rarely produced flowers. Twelve months ago I finally moved them into other pots containing the indicated potting mix and now they are growing as I know City of Newcastle can. I'm hoping to have some award winning blooms for the show bench this coming Spring from the bushes. I also tried straight potting mix however it had water retention problems in the hot summer period. Originally I used the sand to potting mix at 1/1 ratio however the pots were hard to move so I decreased the amount of sand without any noticeable change in growth of roses in the said pots. These days I add a couple of scoops of Seamungus for water retention and soil improver.

Thank you so much everyone. I have grown roses in soil in pots and like you Doug, they were miserable! I think I may try a pot of each, ie: home mix and bagged mix to see if there is any difference. I take what you say John about the ratios. Also, I've been told I should buy the bag compost etc with the red box with ticks and not the black box. Any comments on this please?

Sue you can get all the info about potting mixes by going to 'standards for potting mixes in Google from memory.

I've been using Searle's Rose potting mix, recommended to me by an oldtimer from Vic Rose Soc. Seems to be working well, looks richer and darker than Debco I used prior. Anyone else tried Searles?
I've only got a few roses in pots so in my case it's much easier to buy bagged potting mix rather than mix my own.

Hi again! Sorry, been rather busy lately with new Grandson!!
I haven't tried Searle's Silky, but will give it a go. I know my gardening club "Gurus" say to buy the stuff with ticks and in the black box with "professional" on it !!