Thread: Shrub roses
View Single Post
  #7   Report Post  
Old 05-08-2003, 10:02 PM
Franz Heymann
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shrub roses


"Rod" wrote in message
...
"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.

Thanks, Rod. See my other replies in this thread.

[Franz Heymann]