"Franz Heymann" wrote in message ...
I have a few shrub roses of the Rugosa type. They are all throwng up
suckers by the dozen.
My question is whether such roses are customarily grown as cuttings, or
are they grafted?
The reason I ask is to help me decide whether to remove the suckers
and/or to replant them, or whether I just leave them on the parent bushes.
The latter will lead to trouble sooner rather than later, as my plants are
spreading in width at about 2 ft per year.

[Franz Heymann]

The nursery trade usually grow them as budded(grafted) plants - it's reliable, cheap and economical with the
propagation material. Unfortunately with plants like R. rugosa varieties you lose the natural thicket forming habit of
the plant and run the risk of getting suckers. If they are planted deeply then the scion (cultivated variety) will root
and form a thicket as it would naturally but you will still have a risk of suckers growing from the understock. If you
are sure that what you're seeing are suckers and not the natural habit of the plant asserting itself then you should
remove them - and it won't be easy ;~((( I've got a couple like this, took us a a while to notice the suckers towering
over them, then guess who had to crawl underneath to the middle to get them out. Look for distinctly different stems,
prickles and leaves. Young rugosa stems are lightish green densly populated with *lots* of tiny prickles. Common
understocks will be much more sparsely populated with larger slightly hooked prickles.

Rod