They may be new basal canes, not suckers. You may want to remove all the weeds & grass so you can evaluate more closely. Looks like there might be some dead canes towards the center, cut those back. Prune the rest and see what buds out I the spring. Personally I wouldn’t get all crazy with it and dig it out or anything 🙂

The most recent flowers were definitely true to Chrysler Imperial? Because as far as can be seen from the distance you took the picture it looks like pretty much the whole thing has become 'Dr. Huey' rootstock.

Well it appears we have a split decision ... perhaps the best way for me to proceed is to hack my way in there and see what it looks like after I yank some weeds. I've been fertilizing it steadily (with FoliagePro), but perhaps I will add some alfalfa and worm castings.

It does seem to me as if the plant will continue declining/being taken over by the rootstock if I do nothing, so that makes me worry a little bit less about doing it wrong.

I will try to post more photos later.

Thank you, Embothrium and Dingo2001!!! Much appreciated.

Is there a reason it needs to be in a pot? Couldn’t you just plant it in the ground?

It's time to let that mess go. You don't have basal breaks. If you like Chrysler Imperial, go to a good local nursery and buy a bare root of it. Wherever you are in So. Calif., there is probably a great real nursery that has really good bare roots at this time of year. I grow ~180 roses in 15 gallon pots, along with 20 in the ground. I just replaced my elderly (20 yrs old) potted Chrysler Imperial with a brand new bare root that is the biggest bare root I've ever gotten. Dig down and cut off the roots going into the ground. Dump it in the green can. Maybe you can save the pot.

Thank you, floral_uk and susan from sb - I appreciate the thoughts.

I got up many of the weeds, and I can now see that there are a clustered group of "suckers" to the left - but I don't know if they could possible still be C.I. (ie, not really suckers).

I took some (not very good) photos of the leaves from the original plant and one of the suckers, and they look similar to me.

The first photo is a sucker. The second is from the main plant (which I found out was from Weeks, the metal tag is still on). (I couldn't post from my phone, Idk why ...)

The original plant is still kicking. Lots of buds. Susan, I hear what you're saying - and I need more roses anyway so maybe I'll get another one.

Floral_uk, you too make a good point - the pot is a mere formality at this point - it's small and not much dirt left - it would be quite a job just to get down there and saw it off the ground.

Meanwhile ... does anyone have any idea of the probabilities involved? Are the vigorous green shoots on the left almost certainly a rootstock? Is it more like 50/50? Bc I could just keep fertilizing and see if both groups bloom. Btw - does fertilizing help both plants equally?

It's possible I have too much time on my hands. ; )

Photos of the base of the shrub would be more useful. It will show if the branches are coming out below or above the graft.

Okay, here are 2 more photos - sorry it's still a mess!

New question - if those things on the left are suckers, why does there seem to be a knobby thing on the left too? Would a sucker do that?

Or, did the plant have 2 parts originally, and now it also has suckers? (I guess in future it might be a good idea if I photograph plants as soon as I get them.)

I scrutinized the leaves, and while there were varying degrees of serration on the edges, they didn't look demonstrably different to me. However, to solve this puzzle, I will take leaves off and make good close-ups, if people here think it would help.

Anyhow, thanks for the comments, people! There are a lot of leaf buds all over - perhaps there will be an answer one way or the other.

Good job on cleaning it up! If you have the time and energy, I'd use your Felcos or a saw to cut the roots right at the base of the pot. Rock the pot back and forth, cut, rock, cut until it's free. Then pull it out of the pot, and split the rose into two parts and bare root it. You can be brutal. You'll no doubt lose the original pot. Cut the canes back to no more than 12", and prune the roots. Put them in separate pots with good potting soil. Water well. Keep in the shade for awhile so it can recover from the trauma, and gradually move it to full sun. The clump on the left in your pic looks promising.

The mostly smooth green canes to the left will be the stock and the prickly bits making up the rest the scion.

The clump on the left doesn't look like any root stock I've ever seen.

Look at 'Dr. Huey'.

Thank you, Susan from SB and Embothrium!

I am still not completely sure what the deal is, but, I did get a reply from Weeks, they said it was almost definitely a grafted rose - which I should have known anyway, or why would it have those graft-looking parts? (Although I still don't understand why there seem to be 2 of them ... why is there a graft bump on the left? Or so it looked to me, after I thought about it for a while. Did we cram 2 plants into one pot? This is why I need to start keeping records.)

I will take a moment to appreciate the irony of - of course - the scion is the thorny part. It's okay, my hand is almost better now.

I will try to get myself psyched up to deal with this plant. It really does smell divine. Thank you all again, it was very helpful!!!

Rootstock sprouts often appear away from the bud head.

Embothrium, all I'm saying is that I have seen scores of elderly Dr. Huey plants, and not one of them looks even remotely like the clump on the left in Need2SeeGreen's pics.

Need2SeeGreen, I really think it's worthwhile to separate them and see what happens. But I'm a science person, so I like experiments! Any ballpark idea of how long ago you planted and plunked this pot?

Me too, Susan from SB, on the curiosity! I am gathering my confidence to try to get at this - I think I have a tub big enough to soak it in once I get it out of the pot, now I need to scrounge around and find a saw. I could just try to rip it or tip it out of the ground, but it's in there pretty good. Won't be easy either way.

As for the age, it has been maybe 20 years or so. No one remembers exactly, or even where we bought it.

Embothrium - does that lumpy thing in the left group look like another graft to you? Or do plants just sometimes make a shape like that? I thought it looked graft-like, but I really don't know.

I’d love an update. How did it go, Need2?

Following.

Hi Socks! I haven't done it yet - I am thinking mid-May. On the container forum, we talk a lot about re-potting when the plant is at its strongest, which is around Father's Day here - but I don't think I'll wait that long. I think it won't be so bad. And the plant seems to be doing okay.

I will definitely put up a bunch of photos. I wonder how many plants I will end up with!

Hello - well I finally did it - let’s see if I can post the photos...

Ah it seems to be working now. I thought the hard part would be separating the pot from the ground, but in the end I just pushed it over with my leg. It was stuck very tight and there wasn’t really room to get a good size kitchen knife in there.

I was surprised by what was under there. I have never seen roots like this, they look like branches. All I had were little hand pruners and I had to slice away at these roots, and do a good bit of wiggly, rolling to loosen, and yanking, before I got the whole thing out of the pot.

I somehow then managed to wrangle it into a tub. Which was nowhere near deep enough. Should have measured ahead of time! Did not.

This photo is unfortunately sideways. See that thick dark thingy in the middle? That was going between the two clumps, underground. As it was underground, I assume it is a root? Anyhow, I had to hack away at that to separate the clumps. It was at least 1” diameter, maybe more. Did I just kill the plants? I don’t know. (They look okay today, but it has only been one day.)

This is what the C.I. clump looked like once they were separated. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. I didn’t see any light-colored root type things, really. Maybe a few fine ones up near the crown but the soil - all of it really - up there was very collapsed, and also very sandy. (Did I do that, decades ago?? No idea. How else would sand get in there though?) I worry that all the healthy roots may have been the ones in the dirt!! Big uh-oh...

Here is a lengthwise shot. Oh, also, these were quite heavy. I didn’t think of that ahead of time. Also, I had to hack off several parts of the Dr. Huey clump a lot to separate them, as they were well entwined.

See that soil I mixed? It was not nearly enough. I had to use the original pot, not this one. I expected the “root ball” to be smaller. I should have measured. I just sort of eyeballed the pot size issue.

I am going to baby the plants now, and hope they make it.

But for the future, see that green branch sticking straight up - does that look like a sucker? The leaves looked the same though (they are up higher and not in the photo). I was exhausted and I left it on. I will see if it flowers. It looked above the crown/graft to me, but what do I know? Ha.

If you count making up the soil mix, it was over 3 hours. If you only count the actual plant wrestling, it was more like 2 and a quarter hours. I am not sure yet if I think it was foolish to do this or not. My back is stiff today but that will go away. If the plant lives and I didn’t injure myself, then I will count it as a learning experience. I learned that I maybe shouldn’t be allowed near roses!!

If the plant is going to hold a grudge, how soon do people think I would be able to tell?

Also, does anyone around SoCal want a Dr. Huey? I put it in the smaller pot and put the yucky old soil in it, bc I ran out of mix. And, why kill it, right? Maybe someone needs one?

Oh yeah, here was another thing. In addition to all the other things I didn’t think about ahead of time, was the thorn issue. Luckily, the Dr. Huey branches have many fewer thorns, so by grabbing onto them, I was able to manipulate the large, heavy clump. I mostly dragged it, really. Otherwise, I would have been in big trouble.

A smart person would probably have trimmed it all back first. Oopsie.