Good pictures, and your Hot Cocoa looks well cared for.

If these new canes originate below the bud union they could be coming from the rootstock, a different variety.

Nope, not below the bud union. Just freakishly thorny, very red, leaves are more curled inward than normal. And growth seems to be at 4 times the rate of all other canes on the plant.

My story is not worth much, but here it is:

My Hot Cocoa had one of those same hyperthorny canes last year. The cane grew to probably 7 ft tall, still growing without a bloom, until I chopped it off (not rootstock). My HC was very small - probably about the same size as yours. I was worried, but has sprayed round-up in the area and thought that was the problem, and it may have been.

Next year (this year)more canes like that started growing. Hyperthorny, extreme growth, and extremely thick canes. Was it RRD? Was it continual round-up damage? I don't know. I got rid of the rose and have been considering getting another Hot Cocoa to replace it, but have not yet.

I would love the rose experts to come out and tell us if they think something happened while 'making' Hot Cocoa - could it be susceptible to hyperthorniness?

flaurabunda - have you sprayed any round-up in the area? Perhaps HC is very sensitive to this. It seems that round-up can get into the roots of the roses which causes weird growth, and can last in the soil for a couple of years.

I would love to know the answers before I replaced mine with another. I would suggest that you do what I did - cut off the offending canes at the point of connection, and wait to see what develops next year.

Mine is doing the same thing. The canes are even more red than yours. I'll be interested to hear what folks say, thanks for the post.

Since three HC growers have reported the same experience, it's probably normal for a happy HC starting to feel its oats.

With unusually strong shoots, always look at the oldest leaves at the bottom of shoots. On a healthy plant, these leaves should be normal except for being a little larger than mature leaves on other shoots. The thorns down there should be firming up, not rubbery. Very strong basals normally look a little strange at the upper end.

this happens sporadically on an Austin rose i have, Compte de Champagne. Canes look exactly like yours and, as we do not RRD here (yet?) i either cut them off or ignore them. They do tend to come around this time of year and originate fairly low down on the main cane. Never found out what it was and uaually cut them off because they HURT but I would not be too hasty to get rid yet since the foliage looks perfectly normal for new growth. As I say, we have not come across RRD so I am no expert but vicious thorny canes do arise spontaneously (I sometimes wonder if some physiological damage may cause it but not really any wiser apart from saying the rose still thrives.

To me, they look like super healthy canes. I think I see a bud forming at the top of one of them. Other than keeping an eye on them in case something truly unusual begins to happen, I wouldn't worry about them. As they mature, those canes and leaves will become greener. The prickles you are just stuck with. (Sorry, I couldn't resist--LOL)

Kate

Hehe....nice one, Kate.

No Round-up damage---I haven't used any at all. The only neighbor within "wind-shot" doesn't go outside, ever. (Now there's a whole other interesting story.....)

Kate, there IS a bud at the top of one of the canes. After crazy-hornet thing went away today, I looked closer & sure enough, it's budding out at the top. This is going to be very interesting. Maybe it's just a cane on steroids.

Hi Laura,

The canes look very good and healthy.

I've gotten many canes like that on my HC. What you have is just an extra happy, healthy plant. Sorry, but you'll just have to live with it. ;^)

My HC's do the same. I let a gorgeous candelabra develop, cut it back and bring it in the house for an instant arrangement. Don't kill your HC.

I think what you have is a happy hot cocoa! Mine grows exactly like that.

Cool! I have to say, it's the healthiest and most robust looking rosebush I have right now. Grows very symmetrically, blooms nearly constantly, has great foliage, and I love how the colors vary on the blooms. I'll keep doing what I've been doing and maybe talk to the other roses in the same bed & encourage them to act like their neighbor! :)
---Laura

I have a similar experience with my hot cocoa, Laura. It is the best blooming rose in my garden. I heard some folks complaining about the unattractive color, etc. I will take this rose over others every day, including his straight thorny canes. All supposedly "first prize AARS winners" in the garden look like ****, but hot cocoa is what I expect a rose to be. No black spot, mildew, yellow leaves, etc. Just a great rose.

WOW ! after all this sales-talk I think I'll go out and get me a Hot Cocoa ! especially when I read the 'no BS ' .... and I love that color... I'll gladly take some of those thorns if it performs as well for me..... Thanks gang.... sally

Same problem, thread from earlier in the season:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/roses/msg051839187622.html

Eww. Think I'll pass on Hot Cocoa.

Gary,
Thank you for pointing me to the other thread--when I searched I probably typed in too many words & never saw it. I see in the other thread that someone mentioned the same type of hyperthorny canes on Gemini. Funny thing---my Gemini is right next to my Hot Cocoa, and Gemini does have one cane doing this, but not at the same speed as HC. Very interesting.

My HC has the least BS of all my roses so far. Have enjoyed the mystery of exactly what color each flush is going to be, since it's a different shade of smoky orange each time.

Thanks all!
---Laura

I saw the other posting on the same subject last week, but ruled out Roundup, as it hasn't been anywhere near my Hot Cocoa. My Hot Cocoa is doing the same thing. I can post pictures that are almost an exact duplicate of flaurabunda's. Can it be coincidence that if it is RRD the only RRD we have in our yard is Hot Cocoa or roses next to it? The locations are all over the map -- i.e., zone 5, 8, and 10, etc. Perhaps these roses came out of the grower with RRD. Does that make sense? I'm going to look up the tag from mine. I've had it several years - so if this were the case, it should have shown up before now. Right? Does anyone else know where they purchased their Hot Cocoa? I have heard that bushes can be infected before we buy them. I witnessed this first hand at a local nursery. There was a rose for sale that most definitely had RRD. I pointed it out to the staff, and it was removed from the nursery immediately. Unfortunately, once infected, it doesn't show up right away. So we could be carrying them home. I have 250 rose bushes, so I can't risk not knowing for sure if it is RRD or not. I guess I should just shovel prune the HC.

Plantlady,
I'm not SP'ing my HC. Based on everyone's recommendations here, I think it's really doing okay, and this is just some sort of super-cane that it tends to shoot up every now and then. As of this morning, my 2 crazy canes have several buds atop them and look pretty darn good---none of that crazy witches-broom shape.

I bought mine from a local nursery, who bought them wholesale from J&P. My HC is grafted, but I don't know the rootstock. Probably either Huey or Multiflora. This is currently the healthiest plant I have, foliage-wise, so I'm not in any hurry to banish it. We have had extreme weather this year, so maybe that's the reason for the extreme growth.

Smiles,
Laura

This is normal growth on Hot Cocoa. We don't have RRD where I am, and this cane developed into a nice healthy basal with a great big spray of blooms shortly after these pics were taken.

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You wouldnt' be the first though to think it's RRD. This particular variety -- Hot Cocoa -- gets misdiagnosed with RRD often. It does send up some peculiarly thorny and angry looking red canes every so often. The new side growth is quite different.

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Kathy

Make my day. I'll wait it out. I'll take some "after" pictures when these crazy canes mature. Thanks for the input.

Although I am not sure if the roses are related, I see my Cinco de Mayo doing the same thing. It's very healthy but I see numerous thorns. Sort of like you would see on a sucker but they seem to normal for the plant. And the thorns are bright red.

I am wondering if this "weird growth" may have something to do with the extreme heat many of us are dealing with. I have 2 HC's and neither is doing this type of "rogue canes" but my Bonica are and two of my HT's are as well. They turn into normal, healthy canes but they throw the balance of the plant off and are extremely thorny. My plants did not do this last year.

I hesitated to respond since I don't personally grow this rose but I also thought it was just extra vigorous growth. As for the thorns, I have seen relatively thornless roses send out canes full of thorns, often due to stress or some unknown factor. I once almost refused a gift of Veilchenblau because the canes were quite thorny and for insurance, took some cuttings from the original thornless plant to root. The next year the new canes from the gifted plant were less thorny and now the plant sends out thornless canes. My point is the prickles, sorry, on a healthy plant can vary due to some physiological factor.
Jim

It is not uncommon for roses to have basal canes with prickles and flowering laterals that are sparsely armed or even unarmed. We encounter this sometimes when we are trying to ID unknown roses. One says their found rose can't be the same as some named variety because theirs has no prickles. Eventually, upon closer inspection, we find that the flowering canes are thornless, but the basal canes, sometimes even only the base of the basal canes, have prickles.

Come to think of it, it wouldn't surprise me if the budwood or cutting used to propagate Hot Cocoa were unarmed, but eventually, new basals with normal armature emerged. I saw the same thing on my ownroot Tamora. The young growth the first year was sparely armed, but the first major hefty basal - and every subsequent basal - was massively thorny.

I waited it out, and the unusually large cane with way more than normal thorns was not RRD. That cane now has the most beautiful blooms on it.

Same here, but my buds are all vegetative. Plant looks pretty good though.

My Chihuly rose, which I planted a mere three weeks ago, is doing the same thing: it has a rapidly growing, very thorny cane. We did spray roundup (rather carelessly) to kill the weeds in the bed prior to planting. Is this likely just a new basal shoot, roundup damage, or RRD? Should I wait and let it grow or remove the plant now?