Thanks everybody, why I was wondering is because two ownroot roses I ordered from heirloom last fall, and two I ordered this spring the tops browned and died from that horrible 115 degree weather we were having, but they still seem to have some roots still(they were in the ground three months before they died). I put three of them before the died all the way in pots trying to save them( probably shouldn't have dug them up but..)and now two are still hanging on by like an inch of green top growth, but I don't know what to do. Leave them in pots and see if they come back or plant them back in ground around october after it's cooled. I've been keeping them watered. Should I give the roots/ pieces of stems any fish emulsion or just keep watering? With them being mostly roots with the little green I was thinking just water but not sure. Thanks for helping this noobie to ownroots.

Well, not to be too mean spirited, but, yes, it is a dumb question (your words, not mine). It means just exactly what it says - they are growing on their own roots; they are NOT grafted onto the root stock of another plant. Most roses that you will find in a nursery today are grafted onto Dr. Huey, Multiflora, or some other root stock. Own root roses are growing on their own roots which makes them true, and not suceptible to winter kill or suckering from the host stock. Sometimes, after a few years, in the ground, grafted roses will revert, that is to say, the garfted tops will die, and the root stock will continue to grow and produce an entirely different rose then the one you originally purchased. If there is die back of the top of an own root rose due to cold winter temps, the rose will come back from its roots and be true. I hope you unuderstand this now. I do not fault you for asking what you felt was a dumb question, because asking questions is how we learn. Oh, and never apologise for asking.

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

Straw, that's what I'm doing with thorny climbers ... growing them up my downspouts to deter thieves breaking into my house AND stealing my downspouts. I'm growing them right up the downspouts! They're copper and it's ridiculous these days what people looking for a quick buck will steal. I've planted Florentina and will be adding Phyllis Bide when she's grown up a bit. I'm still debating on this sale as I have to get a couple that are expensive shipped and still have my gift certificate from HCRs. I'll be going there next week to pick them out so maybe I need to give this a miss until next year. I did really want Purezza and a couple of others so I reserve the right to change my mind. : ))