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Rose cuttings
I read in GW last year that you can take rose cuttings, pot them in the ground and they will take, and grow on to decent plants.
So I was pruning my Harlow Carr back and thought, well I'd give it a try so put it in the ground and they are now in leaf.
What I'm wondering is that when you buy roses, they are grafted onto a rootstock aren't they ? So how will the cuttings I've done be different to the original plant ?
Apologies if this sounds really daft, was just thinking about it when in the garden today. All my roses (Harlow Carr and Gertrude Jekyll) have knobbly bits at the base of the plant, and I just wondered if this was age, or they had been grafted onto a rootstock.
Any advice gratefully received. Thank you.
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The flowers should be the same but the plant may grow more or less vigorously, like fruit trees on different root stocks. All species roses grow happily on their own roots ansd some of the old ones do too. My Rugosa grown from seed is making its own little thicket and Maiden's Blush has sent out roots that have come up in the edge of the path!
Bought ones are usually grafted, which will be your knobbly bit. New roses are created by multiple crosses and the parents may have different growth habits. I guess the growers graft them to save time and have a uniform end product.
Last edited: 08 May 2017 08:37:49
Commercially, you can bulk up a rose quickly by bud grafting. Only one bud is grafted on to the rootstock, so the grafting material will go a lot further. The downside is that grafted plants often send up suckers from the rootstock. As a gardener, who may only want a few extra, using a cutting that has maybe four or five buds on it is not a problem. The disadvantage is it takes a year or so to be a size big enough to move, it is a slow process. The advantage is that there are no suckers. As buttercupdays says, the rootstock influences the size of the end plant, but I have had no problems with roses on their own roots.
Not a daft question. I took cuttings of some of my roses before we left our garden behind last October and put them in terracotta pots with a mix of compost and perlite. Most have taken and have been potted on into individual pots to grow decent sized root system.
Teasing Georgia was a short climber which I grew up a trellis so it will be interesting to see what that does on its own roots. Queen of Sweden grew very tall and straight and narrow in my old garden so, again, I await with interest to see what it does. Two pots failed completely but I've no idea which as the name rubbed off, as did one remaining pot of survivors so I have a surprise to come.
If you do buy any more roses, current advice is to bury the graft union a couple of inches below the soil to make it stronger and also reduce suckers from the root stock.