Thanks MichaelG and Jerijen... MichaelG your explanations also added my feelings that I triply compounded my mistakes when I planted my Frederick Mistral with a plum tree as its neighbor (I have this completely empty lot that begged for roses but then there's that stupid dappled sun issue and I was so stubborn about having more roses-sigh!)... Granted I hacked off chunks of the tree roots to make sure they didn't get in the way of my Frederick Mistral, but I worry it may take too long for my Frederick Mistral to develop a strong root system that it can compete with the plum tree (2 years lag/wait time is very worrisome) It's super tall like a fully developed rose except its stems don't have bulk, another indicator to me that it has baby roots and no anchor roots yet ...I think in March 2010 if it survives with my winter protection, I'll transplant it into a regular pot and stick it near the tree so that it still have the same light conditions but not the crowded soil until it gains that bulkiness that indicates the anchor roots have set in... What do you think of this idea? As for my own root climbers, Jerijen, what are their shapes like? Do own-root climber roots develop faster than regular own-root hybrid teas? or do they all develop at exactly the same rate... Thanks all!

Hi Vuwugarden The idea that all roses are best grown ownroot is just plain wrong. Some roses do very well ownroot, old garden roses, some hybrid perpetuals, knockout-/explorer-roses, some Kordes hybrid are not comparable to most modern roses. Now and then even the odd hybrid tea does well(I grow Peace in a container, selfmade from cutting). Even in warmer climates grafted roses can do better, in general grafted roses will grow a bit taller than ownroot. These are results from large test in the fields of many countries and observation has been as much as 7 years or more. If you live in area with fairly cold winters and a short growing season I dare state that modern roses will perform considerably better as grafted plants. Not all roses does well on the most common rootstocks, but this is something the large nurseries know. Suckers are not a big problem, if you check your roses two times a season or something like that rootstock will never have the chance to take over. You simply take out some leather gloves and pull them off. Some rootstocks sucker more than others, but you will probably not see more then one or three a year per 60 roses. Catrose: when the roses gets olde they will all form a "fist" of older wood near the ground. In fact, it is not that easy to tell the difference between a grafted and an ownroot after a few years unless you do some digging. Graftpoint usually is planted a few inches into the ground. I have several roses both grafted and made from cuttings of the same variety. Growth habit is by far determined by the variety, not the root stuck. Rootstock will give stronger growth, and plants will on average grow taller. They tend no more than ownroots to get leggy, spindly. This is more determined by variety and pruning than rootstock. Scardan123; As far as I know the Meilland roses we get here are grafted. Where my family and I have been gardening (Norway, Denmark and France) we buy mostly grafted, and all Meilland roses are. There are a few exceptions; some old roses, rugosa hybrids, some park-roses, species and near hybrids, groundcovers, but even the Meilland ground-coverers I have are grafted (probably on laxa). In short, Meilland roses are no less grafted than other roses. How ownroots will do are dependent on climate, soil, growing season and care given. I am not against ownroot roses, and will happily try to root any variety from cutting. If I where to grow ownroots exclusively I would have to give up most chinas, hybrid teas, floribundas, many climbers and shrubs, at least they would stay small and puny plants. That is mostly due to the short growing season; grafted plats gets an earlier start in spring, grow faster and stronger. These roses will not be more winter hardy as ownroot, if they freeze to the ground they will sprout back, but will have problem really taking of and becoming good plants. Hardy varieties with strong growth will do better. This is at least my experience on the subject, and I have spend a lot of time and energy on different rootstocks and ownroot roses. I know this is a subject that depend very on climate, soil, care roses get..., but still I am surprised how different experiences we have. I suspect that there are differences in the rootstocks that are used, USA use other types. It might have something to do with the grafting techniques too. Here oculation is by far the most common, if not the only one; an eye from the cane of the desired variety is placed in a T-shaped cut on the neck of the rootstock. That produces plants where grafting-point is hardly seen after planting, if at all. My post became far too long, I get carried away by this subject :-)

Hi Saki Glad these comments were helpful, and we're always eager to help a beginning rose grower feel confident with their roses. The photo you posted is a lovely and very mature specimen of what looks like two or maybe even 3 climbing roses all splayed out horizontally along the fence. You can see one "fan" of canes spreading out from just right of center and another fan spreading from the left 1/3 of the photo. I can't tell if the cane stretching straight up in the center is part of a third plant with a few lateral canes or not. This effect is definitely a great thing to strive for, but I'd be totally depressed if I tried to get all my climbers to look like this, since not all climbers put out as many primary canes coming straight out of the soil as this one does. I'll show you two contrasting climbers for example. Colette looks the most like the photo above with several canes coming straight out of the soil that I'm encouraging sideways on my fence. Do remember that climbing roses have to be secured in some way to the fence - they won't climb on their own like clematis or other vines will. Mine is probably 3 years old, and you can see that it has three main canes out of the soil (I usually call them primary canes in a climber, but they come out of the base and I presume the terms are the same thing). Mine is own-root so there isn't a graft from which these canes split off, but if I'd buried my graft the 2-4" that is recommended in cold zones, it would look a lot like this too. Now, the reason you distinguish between primary canes and laterals in a climber, is that your blooms aren't mostly going to be directly on those primary canes that you bend sideways. Even in a young climber like this, you can see that the blooms are in smaller off-shoot canes that branch off vertically from these horizontal main canes - we call these lateral canes. The main/primary canes are toward the bottom of the fence, but the blooming laterals stretch up a good 2-3' higher than the primary canes. The more horizontal you can stretch your canes, the more likely the rose will put out laterals all the way along the length of those primary canes. That means you can have a fence full of blooms from only a few primary canes, even if the rose puts out a limited "fan" of canes. As Colette ages, she might put out more base canes, but I doubt I'd get the rich "forest" of canes in the photo above even when she's mature - particularly in any climbers that lose cane over the winter. Still, I'm confident she'll fill this part of the fence in another 2 years or so. Here's another rose that for me grows in a somewhat different habit. I've only seen one primary cane off the base of my Lunar Mist, and it's more like 4-5 years old. I bend it sideways in the same way as I do the Colette above, and it sends up laterals all along the length. Same principles of laterals and primary canes as above, it's just that the base of the rose is at one end of the array and the blooms arch off to one side off the primary cane that I've bent sideways. You can't quite see the base of Lunar Mist here, but it's off to the right and below the picture here, below where the clematis is. My New Dawn never got mature in the poor location under my oak tree, and we'll see what the new grafted version wants to do now, but at the moment it just has one big cane that I've stretched sideways like the Lunar Mist above. Climbers are very different when young vs. when mature, though, so you have to be patient with them. It usually takes at least 4-5 years before a climber has built up enough root structure to support a robust blooming rose, and not all of them will build this kind of fan structure very widely. Some will be more of a "rainbow" like my Lunar Mist. Regardless, the principle is the same and we encourage more growth of canes from the base in climbers as we do in any rose, with adequate water, maybe some alfalfa to encourage basal breaks, and patience, patience, patience. The rose will "tell" you what it wants to do over time. Just be sure to bend the young canes sideways when it's young, as robust climbers like New Dawn can get pretty stiff and woody in their primary canes over time, and they're much harder to bend. Hope that helps. Cynthia

Bare root just means a plant has been dug up and the soil washed off. It's not a special type of plant. You can 'make' bare roots from any plant. They could be from runners, from seed or older plants that have been dug up. You say you don't know if your plants are producing runners. It should be pretty easy to tell. Runners are long bare stems along the ground with a baby plant on the end. You can net the plants to keep marauders off.