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| 15 years ago, I started a rose bed in the front yard. Well I spend the last two years finishing in a basement and the roses have been neglected. Some had died. Holly bushes had encroached on one side. The roses had been planted too close together. Some of the 1st roses were not very disease resistant (difficult with roses close together hear in the deep south).
So this year, the entire bed of 7 roses is getting pulled up and 5 roses are going to replace them. I placed an order Sunday for some replacement roses. However, there was on rose I wanted to keep. It was Amalia. It has been a great grower and the flowers are such a terrific shade of red. The base of the plant has gotten huge and mature, so this one I was going to keep. Well, I started digging the roses up today. It took three hours just to get Amalia out of the ground so I wouldn't damage it. Once I had it out and washed all the dirt out of the root, I realized I had two Amalia plants. Apparently, over the years, the bud union grew fat and then a section in the middle died. The result was two plants (with still huge bud unions each) doing a kama sutra. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by queenbee_1 7 (My Page) on Fri, Feb 3, 12 at 9:11
| wow.. that must have been really exciting... Doing the happy dance w/ you.. The only thing I have ever found in neglected roses is that Dr. Huey had come to visit! |
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- Posted by hookoodooku 8a AL (My Page) on Fri, Feb 3, 12 at 12:29
| Oh, I've got some Dr. Huey to evict as well. The neglect combined with suckers knocked off the roses under the mail box. I've ordered some Miniflora to replace them. I'm hoping they will make for a better fit. |
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| I'm brand new to the Rose growing community. So does anyone mind telling me who Dr Huey is? |
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| Great news, Hookoodooku! Now you have two of your favorite rose to put in your new bed! jktx, Dr Huey is a root stock used to graft roses onto for more vigorous growth. The problem is that sometimes the good Dr. can be so vigorus that he will take over the grafted rose and kill it. So it's important to watch for suckers and destroy them as soon as possible so they don't muscle in. |
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- Posted by hookoodooku 8a AL (My Page) on Sat, Feb 4, 12 at 12:36
| Just expanding on jktx's resonse... Hybrid Tea roses are generally grown to produce large flowers. However, most do not have very strong root systems. If allowed to grow on the roots they were genetically given, they would produce smaller flowers and smaller plants. However, Dr. Huey is a relatively simple small rose that has an excelent root system. So to get the best of both worlds, most hybrid teas on grown by grafting a bud of the desired HT onto the root stock of Dr. Huey. This 'junction' is known as the bud union. On a rose that you buy, below the bud union is Dr. Huey, and above the bud union is the desired HT rose. Because roses can propogate from cuttings, it is very simple for a section of root to start growing a new rose stem. If this should happen to a HT that has been grafted to the Dr., the new stem growing will be a Dr. Huey rose and NOT the HT rose you bought. These stems are called suckers. Part of the reason is because this stem is of the same plant that the root is and therefore the roots can start to divert more nutriants to this new stem rather than to the HT. As a result, this new stem "sucks nuitriants away from the HT". If not controlled, suckers can take over the plant and allow the HT you bought to die. It's all just part of what makes roses a facinating plant. |
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