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My rose tree has suckered can I use it as a draft ?

13 years ago

Hi My rose tree has suckered with two little upright suckers with leaves at the very top. It looks like a little rose tree coming up about 4 inches from the mother tree. Would you try to rip them out. The top of the mother is nice and healthy looking. Can I draft a rose to it now? Should I seperate the little guys and then in the spring do my first attempt at drafting? Any comments would be helpful.

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Comments (4)

karl_bapst_rosenut
13 years ago
Do you mean graft, not draft?
If they're Polar Joy, they're still Polar Joy. If any other tree rose, they're either the root stock or the standard (tree part). Either way you can attempt to graft if you can separate them from the host without killing them.
Polar Joy will produce another tree if the sucker is trained as such. Make sure it's well rooted before attempting to separate it.

They should be ripped off regardless or they'll sap strength from the mother plant and eventually take over.
reg_pnw7
13 years ago
Those little suckers are sprouts off the roots of the rootstock portion of the tree rose. Tree roses generally have three portions grafted together: one for the roots, one for the trunk, and then the top growth which is the flowering rose you bought it as.

You should keep the root suckers pulled off. If you can separate them with roots you can definitely use them as root stock for your own grafting, but I would think you'd have to dig down to the source of the sucker and cut off the root that sprouted it. Or you could let them grow a couple years and then take cuttings of them and root those and then use those for grafting. But that would not be good for your rose tree to leave them on like that.

You can always buy rootstocks for grafting onto, rather than sacrificing a rose that you like for its rootstock.
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"Propagation: Rosa Damascena is propagated through one year old stem cuttings. It can also be propagated through the divisions of old plant, lateral sprouts with roots and seeds. Stem cuttings are collected at the time of pruning in mid October to end of December; 20 cm long, 0.75-1.50 cm thick cuttings are planted in nursery; 2/3 of the stem length is inserted into soil. IB A @ 200-250 ppm is given to induce rooting. These cuttings are ready after one year for transplanting into main field." http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.2478/V10133-010-0032-4 ---------------------------------------------- " The cultivars and ecotype of Rosa damascena Mill. have been grown by using cutting or two old-suckers for many years" "Stem cuttings are collected at the time of pruning in mid October to end of December; 20 cm long, 0.75-1.50 cm thick cuttings are planted in nursery; 2/3 of the stem length is inserted into soil. IB A @ 200-250 ppm is given to induce rooting. These cuttings are ready after one year for transplanting into main field." "Rooted stem cuttings are taken out from nursery and put in the pits." "The best time of transplanting of rooted cuttings in the field is mid of November to mid January. " http://www.plantsrescue.com/tag/damask-rose/
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hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
13 years ago
Pull (not cut) them out, and there should be some root attached. Then plant that somewhere else and it will probably grow. Then next spring or early summer do your grafting.
karl_bapst_rosenut
13 years ago
To pull, follow the sucker to where it grows from the root or standard, if it was planted a little below the soil surface. In colder areas the lower bud union is sometimes planted deeply to protect it in winter.
Grasp firmly and pull down to remove the sucker and a bit of the tissue it was attached to. Pulling the sucker from the ground will just cause any remaining below the surface to branch and grow more suckers. Cutting will do the same.

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