Sucker!

Guest Post by Veratrine of Dark of Night 

Strictly for suckers?

Thanks to the internet, I’m that annoying patient who comes into the doctor’s office, primed to the gills with "informed questions". And, similarly, the people at my local nurseries probably cringe when I show up, printouts, catalog, or book in hand, looking for a particular plant or product. Case in point: roses.

About three years ago, having cut down the existing, sickly, spindly roses behind our 1920s bungalow,  I decided to replace them with roses I remember from growing up in a Victorian on California’s central coast. These were tea roses, both pink; they flourished with little water, without a sign of disease or pests, year after year. “That,” I said to myself, “is what a rose should be.” 

These were clearly not the roses I was likely to find at Home Depot, however, so I went hunting for them online, and in the process I acquired that proverbial small but dangerous amount of knowledge. One thing I learned was that “suckers” are bad. Very, very bad. To avoid this lurking danger, I would have to buy own root roses. I also learned that I should dig a big hole when planting my roses. So it was that in January, armed with shovel and pick axe, my husband and I were excavating three enormous craters for the three wee little rose plants I had bought online--two Cornelias and a Cecile Brunner.

The descriptions of the Cornelias on the websites I surfed reminded me of the huge five-foot-by-five-foot shrub that engulfed part of the white picket fence around our Victorian, while the Cecile Brunner reminded me of the better-behaved tea rose that lived on the other side of the house, near the plum tree. I got lucky, here. The Cecile Brunner, which is a shrub variety rather than a climbing variety, is pretty much exactly what I remembered and wanted. The Cornelias, however, were another story. 

The Cornelia roses were said to tolerate a little shade, so I planted them near the edge of the shade of the ficus tree that looms over the back yard. Neither of them apparently liked this choice, despite the giant pits my husband and I had dug for them so that their roots would have room to expand. One grew a little and put out a few anemic blossoms. The other sulked, remaining exactly as it was for over a year. Then I moved it to a new, sunnier location, where it began to make many long, sprawling canes, but without a sign of flowers. Eventually, both Cornelias met the fate of the original roses that came with the house.

However, I was undiscouraged. Having built an arbor during Christmas break, I decided I wanted a climbing rose and, again, I was determined to buy own root to avoid the horror of....suckers! But I didn’t want to pay shipping and in the interim I had found a local nursery with a huge selection of roses. So, another grey January morning found me poking around among uninspiring thorny stumps, thumbing through the well-worn rose catalog that had been living beside my bed.

The nursery guy who came to my aid had the kind of grime embedded in his hands that comes only from a lifetime of gardening, but despite this evidence of experience, it seems he either didn’t see my catalog or he kindly decided to overlook it. No, he said, they didn’t have the rose variety I wanted, but he could suggest an alternative: Sally Holmes.

“Is it own root?” I asked, very concerned, but also a bit smug in showing off my knowledge. Here, I knew he would say to himself, is a true rosarian.

“Nope. None of these are own root. They’re all grafted.” 

“But what about suckers?” I inquired in horror, surveying at the hundreds of plants in neat rows stretching out around us, clearly lying in wait to sprout something from beneath the bud union as soon as the unwary buyer wasn’t looking.

“We never have a problem with them,” he said. 

“Never?”

“Maybe one in all the time I’ve worked here.”

Very skeptically, I bought the roses, and, perhaps because I had already erred against the wisdom of the internet, stuck them in holes just big enough to spread out the roots. And...you know what? There’s a reason why the expert is an expert and you, despite the reams of information printed off the internet are not. The Sally Holmes roses have flourished, with nary a sucker. They do have a problem with powdery mildew, but so do a lot of things in my yard, and I find that spraying them with a solution of water, horticultural oil, and baking soda (1 T each per half gallon of water) every couple of weeks keeps the mildew in check. 

So, are ‘suckers’ a bogey man to scare people into sending away for tiny pricey own root roses? I don’t know, but I do know that they don’t frighten me any more. Perhaps even more importantly, I’ve learned that the root stock roses are grafted onto can give a rose the energy to produce great results in a short time. And, I’ve learned to implictly trust experts in the field of their expertise. (Just kidding. You’ll still recognize me by my smug look of expertise and my handfuls of dogeared printouts and catalogs.)

Photos by Veratrine:  top, 'Sally Holmes' in her 'goth garden' (bat house, skeleton flamingoes, artemisium absinthium-- the usual).  Bottom, Cecile Brunner.

Comments

[The Gardener's Eden]

Thanks for the smile-generating post. This is a good one on a lot of levels. I have been pondering what makes an "expert" for awhile now, and I think the answer is always experience. Time, trial and error... all great teachers. And "what works" is always what works in your area. I try to remind people of this on a weekly basis. Buying local always makes the most sense. If something is doing well at a garden center near you... then it is a pretty safe bet it has a shot at yours. Words I now live by, (well, OK , not always) :)
All the best to you Veratrine... nice to see your guest post.
-Michaela

[Michele Owens]

Veratrine, I always plant deep and bury the knob where the rose was grafted. And never see a Dr. Huey sucker.

That said, I am a huge fan of the Antique Rose Emporium, which sells only own-root stuff. Every plant I've ever gotten from them is healthy and gorgeous.

[Faith]

I also grew up in CA's Central Coast area. Did you see the Vine Street Christmas? Love the Victorian Christmas street parties. :)

I have no rant, except I hate fusarium wilt. It destroyed my garden this year.

~Faith

[greenjay]

It depends on the variety of rose,and where you are planting it. Many varieties of modern roses have not been bred to do well over a long period of time with or without a graft. Here where I live (frontrange of rockies), I see about 50% of all grafted roses -- even when planted deep -- reverting to the grafted rose because of dry and cold winter conditions. On the flip side, many own-root roses grow so slowly that it would be decades before you could see them in their mature glory.

[Liisa]

Thank you for the Monday morning smile, Veratrine! Many's the time I'd be standing in the garden, holding a printout with an odd look on my face aimed directly at a plant not doing what I want, and I'm often heard yelling, "But the Internet said..." Plants will do what plants want to do -- no one gave them laptops!

[Mr. McGregor's Daughter]

It's good to be an informed consumer/gardener, but you were wise to defer to the expert, as there's no better source of information than one's own experience in one's area. Own-root Roses are for those of us who garden in the frozen North, where the top growth often is killed in a bad winter.

[Barbara]

Love the post - made me laugh! Like you, I go armed with lots of print outs and books with tabbed pages. And, like you, I find that the best info comes from the experts with the work-worn hands.

Most of the time the research points me in the right direction. I'm waiting to see if that proves true on my California natives project. However, we are still firmly in the sulking stage. "Cannot predict now", as the 8 ball says.

[Veratrine]

Hi All!

Many thanks for the kind words!

Faith, sadly I didn't get to the Vine Street Xmas--that's Paso, right? I'm from SLO--the house I grew up in is the old Roselip place out on 227 in the Edna Valley.

:)

V

[donna]

My Cecile Bruner is own root and gorgeous. I had a couple Lady Banks own roots that did well for a couple years and are now dying. I have some rosa rugosas which are gorgeous. Most of the other own root I have had were pathetic things that are gone or look like crap. Older varieties seem to do better as own root than the newer ones.

J&P roses die on me. Weeks roses are amazing here in SoCal. Mostly it all depends on where you live, where you plant them and some other mysterious qualities that I have yet to figure out.

I've had suckers, but they are easy to cut off.

My CA natives have done best planted in the fall and then Left Alone. The less attention you pay to them, the better they do.

[Jenn]

Great post.

Suckers can be an issue in cold climates (I saw them in zone five), but adequate winter mulch mounded around the grafted cane's base usually keeps the plant happy.

My garden had little snow cover for insulation. If you get decent snow that actually stays on the ground, there's your mulch. The lazy gardener always gambles against that freat thaw-and-freeze, though! (can you tell where I fall?)

[PeonInChief]

Lots of plants are grafted. All of my Japanese maples are. If you get a sucker--anything below the graft line--just cut it off. I've never had much trouble.