Chocolatescorpio's Rootstock

Hi Lindsey, here is the first installment of the photo's, the servimg is playing up, so it will come in bits. The flower is of "Dr. Huey"
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Rootstock and rose.
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[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Here is the next installment, the cream colour is the dead wood for a better word, the pinkish colour is the living wood. It is this part which needs to be cut away as this is the part which contains the cells, which will let the rootstock regenerate, very important for removal. As mentioned in PM's, leave exposed and place petroleum jelly over the cuts.
The offending pant and rootstock have been used for show purposes only and no plant was hurt during this demonstration using United nation protocols,
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I love tough roses that will grow in the middle of the road. They have my respect and Dr. Huey is one of those roses. It blooms in the middle of the summer on 2 to 3 metre canes when nothing else is blooming. The blooms last forever without fading but it's not the understock I would select, everyone complains about it due to suckering.
It has great appeal at the point of sale having been selected from the thickest part of canes from mother plants. Grafting is done on older understocks so roses grafted on it grow like crazy to begin with having a very mature root ball. That's the good news but the bad is it seems to have problems with compatability due to moderns losing vigour around 10 to 12 years. I have trialled it here grafting it myself and my wife has bought about 100 roses grafted on it from a local nursery and all have just about lost all vigour. Even a trip to another part of the garden hasn't improved them. There's only about 5 left from her purchases.

David sorry to cut in on your posts but just wanted to let forum members know the good and bad re Dr. Huey.

Bruce, by all means cut in and out about the "good" Dr. It is of my opinion only that the 'good' Dr will take over any stressed rose, sucker at the first chance, a bump by a shovel will induce a sucker on it. It is a rootstock that suckers if not de-eyed properly. The idea of this thread is to show Lindsey(Chocolatescorpio) how to remove it from her much loved L.D.Braithwaite.

Thanks David, lets start a poll re who hates Dr Huey, sorry there may not be enough room on this forum as intake is limited. No better still, poll on who loves Dr Huey as an understock?

Lindsey, did the photo's help with your rootstock problem

I don't mind Dr Huey as a plant. I do dislike un-announced house calls though...

Bruce - what was the predominant rootstock before Dr Huey? We have some older roses at the old house which are around 60yrs old and still very vigorous (and no RMV either...). One of them being 'Chateau de Clos Vougeot' the other being a 'Cecile Brunner'. (The 'Sutter's Gold' and 'Queen Elizabeth' also seem vigorous but they have RMV).

Wendy, I would suggest it's Multiflora but could be anything other than Dr. Huey. Cecile Brunner will last a lifetime on Multiflora. The others you mentioned also seem to be OK on it despite being HT's.
I believe there is little known about compatability of the different groups of roses on whatever understock.
Let's be fair, there might be one of the rose groups out there that is compatable with the doctor and overcome this running out of vigour which is a typical sign of incompatability. If you want to update your knowledge on incompatability then purchase a book called "The Grafters Handbook" by RJ Garner.

I seem to remember when Dr Huey was becoming all the rage as an understock in the US which possibly started around the 1960's.
I was good friends with Ben Swane and would have liked to have spoken to him about this problem. One of the top exhibition growers here buys all his new release type roses from a nursery who uses Multiflora exclusively

Yesterday I came across an old list of the roses planted in my wifes garden on Dr Huey and nearly all are not with us anymore. They looked so healthy with thick understocks when purchased There are a few stragglers left without vigour possibly too late to even take buds,
remember Peace.

I would like to know the life of a grafted HT on Fortuniana, it may be the answer but until I can get 95% success rooting it from cuttings then it's not a proposition for me. Actually Iwill try it again out of the recomended season, might be the answer for better compatability.

Hello! Thank you for the photo's I am still not sure - are you cutting pink living wood? Or is that pink living wood the root stock that you don't want. You want the graft to take over?

I am attaching some photo's I took this morning (after an absolute deluge yesterday - we have a cloudless sky and sunshine!)

I took them of the lower stem area, a few different aspects.

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? I'm not seeing any untoward rootstock growth on this?

I agree Wendy, Lindsey can we have some shots from the graft we see to the top and including a flower if possible

I don't have any flowers sadly (possum!), you want a shot from the bottom up through the branches to see where they branch from?

Hope these help have also added a couple of the leaves. Thank you for your help with this.

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Other than the fact that the pot needs at least another 3" of potting mix in there to bring the level nearly up to the graft and some feeding is necessary (leaves look hungry) ... what's the problem?

If you are thinking you have understock sprouting then I'd say no. I can't see any sprouts below the graft. If you had flowers were different to what you purchased then it's more likely to be a mislabel.

Does that help?

I had 2 different flowers, mostly the deep red of the LDB with fantastic perfume but I had 2 that were a purply colour not at all like the others and not a skerik of scent. They were not as 'full' as the LDB ie with lots of petals. I have no flowers at the moment, a possum made dinner one night on the 5 buds I had.

OK, so what is the best sort of rose food to use, how much, how often. I am really new to this so appreciate your help.

Could I ask something really dumb - is it going to loose it's leaves in winter (we live in Brisbane)?

Lindsey, from all the shots provided, "it" appears that there is no rootstock. There are 3 canes in most shots, the last one is the one which I will refer to.
There is one cane to the left, small scar at base. This one and the brown dead canes to it's right have similar thorns. The dead canes need to be removed as close/low as possible to the other living wood, leaving 2 healthy canes and the skinny one in the centre. When cutting the dead canes off, a slope away from the cane on the left and about the thickness of the anvil part of your secateurs(does that make sense). The skinny cane needs to be cut back to 3 buds. The really thick cane on the right also "looks" like the other canes, looking at the thorns. Of the 3 canes which had the "odd" flower to it, left, right, centre ?.
As Wendy has mentioned the rose does need some more potting mix in it to stabilize it, how long has it been in the pot ?, might need to be repotted.
If it has not been in the pot to long, top it up as mentioned. As for food, I like the liquid ones, it gets to the rose quicker. What ever you can get, if you have "rose food" which is in granule form, at home that is complete, make up a slurry of it and apply with some water to thin it, these are only my thoughts, others might have different methods.
As for the leaves, it "might" be mites, can you see if there are anything under the leaves ? Will look into the leaf problem further.

Thank you so much David, can I ask what you mean by 'no root stock'. We have fine weekend coming up so armed with your instructions I will 'operate' (note to me - buy CSI gloves at Coles!)

I will take a photo of the cane that had the odd flower for you. I bought it from a garden centre in about spring last year so it has been in its pot about 6 months. The leaves started to look like that not long after I bought it and no there does not seem to be any bugs underneath but I will double check.

I will also photo the whole bush so you can get a sense of it as a whole.

It is staked because Oswold (as in cyclone) blew it over, in fact nearly out of the pot but it doesn't seemed to have suffered any more than it is suffering now.

"No Rootstock", means that there is no shoots coming from below the grafted area where the 3 shoots are coming from. I forgot to mention you have a very small shoot coming out from the "union" if you have a look, it will be another shoot for next Spring/Summer

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The rogue flower came from this branch, it is quite spindly.

This is the rose as a whole, quite a bit of growth at the top.

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Looks like a sport to me. Happens now and again when a different rose grows grows out of original.

On the branch that the spindly one came off - did it have 'normal' flowers?

Don't rush cutting anything. At worst I think you may have had some variation due to weather/young plant (weird things do happen), and at best you may have a "sport" happening. (ie. there has been a mutation that causes different flowers. Totally cool, just by the way.)

Now I think it did, because it confused me. Before the possum had his dinner there were a couple of buds on that stem and they looked as if they would be dark. The first odd one I had happened just after I planted it and then another one recently. Can't remember which branch the first one was on though.

So I need to top the pot up, do I loosen the soil that is there now before topping it up or will that interfere with the roots?

It is still quite hot here, 28C today and all week so should I wait to trim it?

I am stoked to have a 'totally cool rose' by the way.

You can trim dead wood off at any time. I wouldn't trim the live stuff - it needs all the leaves it can get. *g*
I'd probably just put the potting mix on top and then give a nice drink of Seasol to encourage the roots. Depending on what rose food you have it could go under the new layer of potting mix or, if in liquid form, just in over the top when you do some Seasol.

Let you know how things go.

as a fertilizer for all potted flowers.....try Neutrogs "Strike Back" for Orchids.....wouldn't use any other. Then water in well and if you are going to add more soil to the pot, I would go for a good quality compost as you have enough soil and the compost will help the soil you have as well as your plant....