If the rose is vigorous growing on its OWN roots, I feel own root is best & grafted, only when the rose is not vigorous on its own roots which is usually HT's.

I neglected to protect The McCartney rose last winter. It died back to the ground. I grew back even better than before in less than one season--it now has three good canes. The pink flowers are quite fragrant, though the high centered form is fleeting. I bought this from Wayside Gardens back in 2004 as a grafted bareroot rose. My first order of roses via the Internet! It does have a touch of powdery mildew, which isn't unusual for this variety in my yard.

I do not have years of experience with roses, so this is just an observation from my own garden in the last 3 years. My own root hardy type roses are taking longer to fill in & grow robustly. My grafted roses have grown much quicker & bushier in general. For example bill reid (3rd year) in the ground is still spindly & small, less than 2 feet. It is cold hardy. Whereas, teasing georgia (2nd year), not cold hardy. It died back to the ground. Is 4 feet and has also thrown out 5-6 foot canes. I think if you want a more filled in garden in less time, grafted roses will do that. I don't have a large yard & I don't want to wait years on an own root rose to fill in a spot & give a decent show.

Hi Moses!! Here's my experience. I bury my graft 4-6 inches down. I never winter protect. We get -20 F consistently every year. What does best depends on the rose and where I have it planted. More tender roses like Perdita do best grafted when away from the house. Up next to the house within 1 foot, own root does fine. Roses like James Galway was all cane and no blooms on a grafted plant.

My Crown Princess Margareta that is own root from David Austin Roses that was the smallest plant and winter kills to the ground, is just fine. The two that were massive when they arrived own root from DA that got snow cover and never winter killed, took over my garden. They were giant caned blooming machines and waaaaay too big for the space so I ripped them out! Grafted, I think they would go to the moon.

Here is what I have discovered over the years growing in cold zone. The larger the rose, the better the rose for it's entire life. I have a bunch of Johann Strauss under my window. The largest roses when I planted them grafted 15 years ago, are still the largest roses. I have rooted cuttings of JS and added a couple over the years to that same space. They have never caught up to the biggest roses that were planted there. I have noticed the same with my grafted Perdita. The biggest plant when I planted it, is still the biggest plant. Don't know if this is true everywhere in cold zones, but has been true for me for 30 years of rose growing.

If I have a giant own root rose from DA, and it is hardy, it will do better than grafted. I think sometimes that graft is just too much gusto for a rose that wants to get big anyway. Blooms are better here on own root than grafted on a hardy rose, IF it has giant roots when it is planted like I get from DA. Just my observations.

Rebecca

IME, own-root roses that die back never amount to anything. A hardy own-root can take its time to build into a good plant, like several own-root Explorer have done. A dieback rose just doesn't have that luxury. We have cooler, shorter summers than most of the country, and a lot of tender roses just won't grow without a rootstock. So long as the bud union is underground at least an inch, the other variables haven't seemed to matter.

Thank you all for your insights. I got on the 'band wagon,' with own root roses back when they started to become heavily promoted and readily available. Now, I am having second thoughts about own root roses in the North.

All your thoughts seem to point to own root roses for extremely vigorous tip hardy roses, and grafted roses for the less vigorous, winter tender ones.

Seems like I need to consider getting grafted roses for certain varieties in the future.

Moses

Zack,

You mentioned that your McCartney rose's high center form is fleeting. Does it wilt/crisp in the heat or blast quickly for you? I have been thinking about McCartney for my garden. If it looses its height, but is still nice looking, I could live with that; blasting, wilting, or crisping....not too happy about these. I would pass on it if that happened.

Thanks!

Moses

I forgot to mention that I bury my own root roses down about 2 inches.

Rebecca

My own root roses that were hardy did the best in Alaska over the years. The more tender eventually died. HTs were not my love, so many I wanted were available own root.

I prefer grafted roses myself. They do seem to be stronger growers all around. I've had terrible luck with bands here. Most never make it through their first winter because they just weren't big enough on one short season's growth. If they do make it through they don't seem to grow very well and are still quite small compared to the grafted ones. And there is a problem with knowing which ones do well on their own roots. You just don't know until you grow it in your own garden if it's vigorous own root or not. So there is a big, and sometimes expensive, learning curve involved. I also feel that with my short season I don't want to wait years to see a rose show its stuff. I want that instant gratification you get with a nice big grafted rose. I know I'll get blooms this season on it and I like that.

I don't recall any issues with The McCartney blooms--it is a spot with morning sun and afternoon shade so fragrant blooms do last longer than if they were in full sun.

Cynthia

Your insights are invaluable to me. I will just responded briefly now, not having studied your response in depth (gotta' get outside before dark and feed the turtles), and will digest it properly later, and respond to it thereafter.

Moses

Cynthia- thanks for the info. I try to buy own root when possible just because they're much easier to plant in my boulder strewn New England soil. I plant most of the roses myself since my husband has knee problems. Also there is no graft rot to worry about or sucker issues. I have a Griffith Buck 'Folksinger' rose that's probably 15 years old. The winter cane breakage is so severe that it gets pruned down to the ground every spring. This is one of my most prolific roses although it gets terrible black spot. I have had grafted Knockouts die, especially the original red Knockout with the graft buried 3-4 inches below grade. Some of my Kordes roses seem slow to mature, others are doing very well. Honeymoon is only on her second year and is about 5 feet tall. Madame Anisette was also about 4 feet tall before I cut her back to promote more basal breaks. Fireopal and Innocencia are nice size as is Jolie Veranda. I think my roses are wimpy more due to my far from optimum growing conditions, 5 1/2 hours sun max, plus we have a very short summer. Most of my roses usually don't bloom until early July. Darlow's Enigma, own root, was huge until I killed it by attempting to transplant.

Graft failure is another concern. I'm nearing 60 and can't imagine trying to replant a whole rose garden at 70 years of age when the graft fails. I always add Mycorrhizal to the roots before planting to help develop the root system. I recently planted a Cloud10 band that I purchased in late May and had potted up in a 1 gallon pot. The root system completely filled the pot and was growing out of the bottom. I was amazed.

Just my observations and concerns.

Sharon

I've been able to force roses to grow bigger by disbudding them the first year. Two own root miniflora Regina Lee rose bushes. The top one originally belonged to another rose club member. The bottom one got lots of attention the first year and is much bigger.

Ah yes, Sharon - I'd totally missed that other down side of planting grafted roses, to have to dig that huge hole to bury the roots as well as the graft down far enough. I'm lucky enough to have good soil so digging the hole deeply isn't a huge problem, but I plant tightly enough that I may only have a shovel or two's worth of width to play with and putting in grafted bare roots is always a bit of a challenge in the spring.

Nice photo evidence of the benefits of disbudding in the first year, Zac. I did that faithfully on new planted roses a couple of years ago and I think I posted about the incredible difference I saw in the rose vigor in setting down roots and getting bushier canes. This year I'm just too danged lazy to bother after planting 400 or so roses again in spring (over 80 of them grafted) so they're on their own. So far the weather and other conditions have been good for the roses and they seem to have forgiven me.

Cynthia