I really can't tell from the pics, you would need to post a closer / clearer pic of the place where the canes come off from the 'trunk' BUT when a rose is budded canes come off from one side as it appears to be the case with your rose. No special care for budded vs own root apart from the need to burry the bud union at an appropriate depth to be protected from deep freezes. If I had a choice, in your climate, I would prefer own root.

It definitely looks grafted to me, but how long have you had it? I’m assuming it’s a relatively recent purchase? The bulge you mention, the way the canes are growing from the base, the remnants of older canes that were cut back, and also the thickness of the canes all indicate a grafted rose (unless If you’ve had it a long time). I actually have an ownroot MW from DA and it came much smaller and bushier than yours (think about 6” x 6”in size), and the canes were very twiggy.

-Chris

Thank you all very much! I very much appreciate your help and advice.

I also think that it's best to grow own root here. If it's grafted, then it must be Dr. Huey because that's the rootstock that DA uses in the US. (If I understand it correctly, Dr. Huey is not as hardy as some other rootstocks.) All canes do seem to come off from one side only.

I don't know how old this rose is but I bought it earlier this year. It was in a DA pot, about 2-3 feet high (including the pot) and had a few blooms. It rebloomed prolifically after I planted it in the ground and gave about 2-3 flushes this summer.

I've just made a couple of more photos with paper towels on the ground to hopefully give a better picture of where the canes are coming from and also the view of this stump.

If it is grafted, then my concern is that we didn't plant it deep enough and it might die back this winter. I mound about 1 ft of compost and mulch at the base of each rose for winter protection. Is there anything else I could do now with MW before replanting it deeper next spring?

One side where the stump is:

The opposite side:

A sideway view:

Yup, it's 100% a grafted rose. Hopefully others can recommend a winter protection strategy.

-Chris

Dr, Huey is perfectly hardy where you are. If you don't have rot/mold issues with your winter protection, it should be fine. Here, it would be a great way to kill a rose, but you are much drier than we are.

BTW, I hate own-root Austins. They have no vigor, and absolutely refuse to grow. The performance you are getting out of this rose is *because* it is a grafted plant.

I have no personal experience but, as I said above, I feel that in zone 5 the bud union should be burried deep lest you end up with a nice Dr. Huey plant a couple of seasons down the line.. Unless there is consistent and constant snow cover throughout the deep freeze period.

IME, the bud union doesn't have to be very deep. We do tend to have snow when it gets cold, but roses are something that don't seem to mind the rare open winters. The roses that revert are ones with the bud union high in the air. Because of pot size limitation, budded roses are planted very high in their pots. A lot of people think that is how they should be planted in the ground, so the bud union ends up 4 or 5 inches in the air. Those die. If you can't see the bud union, it is fine.

Thank you all so much again!

We planted this MW at the same level as it was in the pot with this bud union about 2-3 inches above the soil level. I think it's too cold now that I replant it deeper (32F; the soil temp 45F if my soil thermometer is correct) but I'll take a chance and plant it deeper today. It's likely to die back this winter with the bud union so highly positioned anyway. Thank you mad_gallica for explaining it about the pots. I had no idea.

I prefer growing roses that are hardy in my zone on their own root and MW was listed for z5, but if David Austins do not do as well in colder areas on their own root, then it turned out to be serendipitous that it's grafted. I bought 'Mary Rose' around the same time, but its bud union was not that high and it's now completely covered in compost and mulch. Thanks a bunch all!

I found that unless a rose is cane hardy, it definitely benefits from a rootstock for regrowth. Hardiness ratings for roses are notoriously optimistic/idiosyncratic, particularly for repeat bloomers, so a rose listed for zone 5 is probably only cane hardy to zone 7.

Well, I've just replanted it with the bud union about 2-3" below the soil level. I would have done it further down but the clay underneath was getting worse at deeper levels. When I mounded the mulch around the base, it's an additional 1 ft or so on top of it. I think it will be fine now. The bud union was previously a few inches above the ground and, now that I learned all this, I think it surely would have been killed.

Nik's line about Dr. Huey potentially taking over also triggered alarm bells and I right away ran out to replant it. :-) mad_gallica, I'll keep it in mind about cane hardiness when planting repeat bloomers in the future (ah, why do I have to love bourbons?!) and will reserve my zone 6 pockets only for them from now on.

A side benefit of burying the bud union deep, regardless of climate, is that this tends to discourage the rootstock from producing suckers. It produces more roots instead. This is more important when stocks with suckering tendencies are used or the stock has not been properly disbuded at the nursery.

Vesfl, you've already received more great feedback from our experienced forum than I'd be able to give you, but I do want to chime in to let you know that I grew grafted plants (with buried grafts) in Minneapolis. One nice thing about grafted plants is that you can slice cuttings to make own-root ones, too. The downside is possible rose mosaic virus infected Dr. Huey, but that's a whole 'nuther kettle of earthworms. Interesting that your nursery said its Austins are own root, but not actually. Austin only offers certain cultivars own root. It sounds like the nursery rep meant "bare root." Carol

Carol, thank you for sharing your experience and advice. It crossed my mind last night that many people reported on this and rose forums about the virus from DA grafted roses in the US. I can only hope that it's not the case with mine and will closely monitor it. I called the nursery this morning to alert them that the roses are grafted. Lo' and behold, they knew it and it turned out that it's likely one of their temporary workers they hire in summer who was accidentally mistaken about it. Their roses arrived as grafted directly from DA ... I'll definitely be on the RMV lookout .. although, like the graft on my MW that Chris immediately recognized but it was completely unknown to me, I'm not sure how to identify RMV which makes me ever more grateful that I can turn to this fabulous forum if needed.

Just Google images of RMV and a pile will appear in your browser. It generally shows up as jagged/zigzagged pale creamy yellow to golden yellow marks on foliage, but the yellowish marks don't follow veins like they do with nutrient or hydration deficiency problems. Just FYI, oodles of roses have been grafted on RMV infected stock over the years, and countless others have been propagated via cutting from roses grown on infected stock. I grow a number of obviously RMV infected roses and a few others which surely must be infected even though they've shown no signs. All are thriving. Sometimes, RMV significantly weakens a plant, but given the number of flourishing infected plants I've seen over the years, I don't find RMV to be the greatest of worries. I'm guessing that there's a fairly good chance DA's own root Munsteads may be infected, too, but that's just a guess. Please keep us updated on your Munstead's progress! I'd love to read reports from your climate. I hope you enjoy your MW as much as I have mine! Carol

It is most probable that all DA mother plants in the US are budded on rootstock (because new varieties are most probably imported as budwood which, unless it is micropropagated by tissue culture, is budded on rootstock to create mother plants). Some of those are bound to be infected. When cuttings are taken from these to create own root roses then those will be infected too.