Hi Niels, great question! I researched on that, and it depends how well it's grafted, and if the bud union is left to dry out and callused, then the life-span is short. I should had bought the grafted Heirloom rose at Walmart when it's moist early April. I hesitated since I wasn't sure about the thorns. It sat at the store for 2 months, dried out, and the bud-union got callused. When I planted it in June, only one branch lived, the rest of it died (4/5 of the rootball). I killed it since it looks lopsided.

Old Heirloom Roses site wrote: "Own-root plants have some significant advantages and disadvantages over grafted plants. They tend to live longer due to not having a bud or graft union that calluses and hardens over time leaving little space on which new shoots can emerge." See the link below.

I once researched on this topic, and found someone who worked for Elizabeth Park in CT said they have to replace the roses since the life-span of a grafted one is short. I visited that park while living in CT and it was absolutely gorgeous, tons of blooms. Cantigny park here in IL with over 1,000 also replaced their beds through the past decade.

For my garden Knock-outs are 12 years old, but I bought them as big plants grafted in pots, rather than bare-roots, plus they grew their own-roots. I like own-roots better since it's more compact, well-branches, and more blooms for a smaller size. The grafted bare-root Heirloom rose took 2 months before giving me its first bloom on a lop-sided plant. In contrast, own-roots bloom immediately. Check out this 1-month old Crimson Glory, bought as a tiny band, but blooms IMMEDIATELY once put in a pot, picture taken this May:

Here is a link that might be useful: Own-root vs. grafted roses

It may take a grafted rose a few years to become fully established and mature but once so it should last for a lot longer than 7 to 8 years. I have a couple of roses growing here that were my Mom's and planted between 30 & 50 years ago and they are still good looking and viable bushes. And I know that they are grafted (and probably on Dr. Huey) because Mom never planted the bud unions below grade and never used any kind of winter protection. Unless there is some other problem they should last for decades.

We should also probably add the variety has to have inherent vigor and strength to begin with. Weaklings are always going to be short lived. Try getting twenty years from Grey Pearl, whether budded or own root and you're doomed from the start.

After posting earlier, I remembered reading in an English catalog many years ago that Whiskey Mac was the highest selling rose in Britain for many years running. Not that people wanted MORE of it, but because it froze to death every year and most were replacement plants. They were surely budded plants in the British market. Imagine trying to get years out of a budded (or own root) plant in a climate in which it is pretty much guaranteed to freeze (or burn) to death. Kim

It depends on if the bud union is intact, or dried out. Lifespan of a discounted dried-out grafted rose in zone 5a is very short. There are many eye-sores Dr.Huey take-over in abandoned houses around here. Even when trimmed back, Dr. Huey is ugly in the winter, a real public eye-sore.

What's nice about own-root is if they die in a harsh zone 5a winter, they don't leave behind an out-of-control Dr. Huey Rambling monster.

One of the Knock-out I killed was planted at ground level, no winter protection. I dug up and found own root at surface level, and Dr. Huey below it. It was 2 stacks level. So roses do grow own-root if there's sufficient pro-longed rain, which happens often in zone 5a with wet spring/fall.

The other Knock-out was planted right next to tree-roots, and I never water it. It DID NOT grow own-roots. The 3rd Knock-out was planted with bud-union 4 to 6" below soil level, it lost Dr. Huey completely, just a tiny shallow own-root left, in a very wet bed that many irises died.

I agree with what Kim said, "We should also probably add the variety has to have inherent vigor and strength to begin with." Peace has 364 first descendants, for a total of 6,149 descendants if you count all the generations. Peace is very vigorous on own-root, and most likely grew their own-roots in your neighbor's 50 years old bed of Peace roses.

That's one of the reason why I paid membership to HMF so I can trace the descendants of Peace. The Meilland roses I grow with Peace heritage are VERY VIGOROUS as own-roots, they have no problems pushing their roots through my heavy clay. I once broke a shovel, plus a big rototiller machine in my rock-hard clay. Knowing the vigor of the parents helps in choosing roses that will do well as own-roots.

The recommendation to radically prune (butcher) HTs always bugged me & I never did it. Oh, sure, if you're trying to get an exhibition bloom--but not for a healthy garden plant. I mean wacking to a few inches tall every year. At least that was my gut feeling about it.

In my old area, many people did the same thing--annually, no less--to deciduous trees & shrubs. Then they'd whine about losing trees to disease or drought. People who cringed at the yearly razing of beautiful shrubs called it "crepe mytlecide".

We dragged Mother's Tropicanas she bought when they came out (1960?) from west TX to the coast to mid TX over the course of over 40 years, poor things. I only cut them back significantly 2-3 times.

I do find the pruning observations interesting. Most of the pruning here is done by winterfrost - we sort of have no choice - and have to prune back to a clean pith.

It may however be a matter of rootstocks? Up until the 1980es - R. Canina species was most often used as rootstocks over here - (Rose Canina Pfanders in Germany - Rosa Canina Laxa in milder/warmer areas - like France and England - but most use R. Multiflora today.

Off course the variety/class of roses also seem to matter - but it could also come down to whether the rose goes own root or not as Straw points out (98 percent of the roses sold over here are bare-root (grafted) grafted roses - it is almost impossible to find ownroot roses here.

Polyanthas and hybrid musks almost always goes ownroot here - almost like gallicas - while I rarely see it happen to most modern roses - like Queen Elizabeth - grandiflora(your specimen sounds great Kim), hybrid teas, floribundas, and Austin roses.

I think I need to experiment more with own-roses!! All Meilland roses I have gotten from Meilland In france - are the worst quality bareroot roses I have ever seen - they look like tiny dahlia bulbs - and the rootstock almost always dies - but most often they have gone own-root by then - and actually begins to shape up after some years (I have dug up the tiny plants to see what was going on - and saw that the rootstocks were dead - but the canes had rooted themselves.

I sometimes wish our lives were longer ... it takes a lifetime of experimenting it seems.

Love Crimson Glory here too Straw - it does lack vigor here - but I like the Very Fragrant velvety blooms.

I think all the so called rules about pruning need revision. I exhibit and I do not ever hard prune my roses. I never prune in the fall. In the spring I let the roses tell me where they need to be pruned to and don't just prune low because that's what people say to do. Sometimes during the season I may take a branch back a ways while dead heading to shape a bush better. Otherwise I don't ever hard prune anything. Personally I think most roses resent being pruned. My roses start out larger in the spring for it and are fuller through the entire season and I like them that way.

If all it came down to was grafted versus own root, then every miniature I ever planted would still be alive in my garden. They are not. I have grafted roses and own root roses that are about the same age. There are many variables that lead to longevity (as with people); rootstock is only one of the factors.....Maryl

I agree with Maryl that there are other factors besides rootstock, such as soil suitablity. Dr. Huey, a rambler known for drought-tolerant, doesn't like wet clay here, but great in Kim's dry clay in California. I have a wet-clay spot that a Knock-out grafted on Dr. Huey HATES IT. Then I put an own-root Meilland rose, and it bloomed like mad.

Own-root with Rugosa heritage like Austin Eglantyn HATES my alkaline clay, and its root shrank ... one died last winter. Meilland roses bred in alkaline clay France, and Kim Rupert's creations grow HUGE roots in my alkaline clay ... but Meilland roses didn't survive the winter for another in my zone 5a, with acidic loamy soil. In contrast, Meilland as own-roots are vigorous in my alkaline clay, and stand the best chance for zone 5a winter survival.

Soil suitability and where it's bred play a factor in winter survival. The Austins which were bred in a lime-free soil, are stingy here with my tap water high in lime. When it comes to own-roots, it's best to get roses that are bred in a soil/climate similar to mine.

I have several budded hybrid teas planted by the previous owner of my home, Mrs. J, out in front of the house which I call "deer territory". Mrs. J was in her 90s when I bought the house and the roses had been neglected for decades. For several years, I neglected them, too, because I thought I didn't want to grow HTs and hoped they would just die.

The deer pruned them annually both in spring and fall. A couple of years ago, I caged them, but still didn't give them much attention. They were lucky to be watered because I was planting my roses up on the house pad level in back of my house and working on the deferred maintenance of the house.

Nope, they didn't die, but they did out grow the deer cages.
So, this year I decided to give them some attention. This is where I disagree with Kim about cultivating the bed. Mrs. J had planted them in a bed that was 8" wide. Actually, the two tiers are the retaining walls to hold up the lawn and to keep the house from sliding down the slope.

I widened the top tier from 8 inches to three feet, took out all of the companion plants, dug in a copious amount of compost and made the deer cages much, much larger and watered them regularly. (I used huge redwood planks milled in the forest to hold back the lawn and to make the slope stable.)

I did not prune them at all. Not even a rejuvenation pruning. I wanted them to put on new wood. The roses have out grown their much larger deer cages twice in one season ! Yes, I had to keep adding more compost to the bed as the compost I dug into the bed decomposed, but it was easy to do since the bed was much wider.

It's easy to say that the plants are successful because I am gardening in a warmer climate, but I don't think that is the real answer for these roses. My roses are subjected to freeze-thaw conditions all winter. My night temps drop below freezing and the day temps are always above freezing. I've decided the best answer is that it depends on the rose.

I think if I lived in a colder zone, I would probably mound them up so that they don't die back to the crown. Dave Boyd has written about growing tender roses in zone 4 in Montana on HMF and seems to have had success growing roses that were supposed too be to tender for his zone. I wouldn't prune off any wood until spring. I used to prune the roses when they were dormant, but that's pruning off their food supply. The rose may die back, but it often surprises me how the plant will use wood that I thought was dead. Now, I wait.

The one HT Mrs. J planted on the house pad level has had rejuvenation pruning. The rose is 'Tropicana'. It's huge, larger than any HT I have ever seen in an even milder climate.

I tend to break many of the old pruning rules because I think I need to prune to get a plant well foliated to handle the high temps of summer. That means I only prune out dead or diseased wood and maybe crossing wood, but I leave as much as I can, even wood that looks like it might not be productive. With this pruning method, along with the spring dis-budding for the curculios, all of my roses are larger than the norm and have lots of foliage which I think allows the plant to put out more bloom.

The budded HTs are 40 to 50 years old and are vigorous, viable plants with fantastic bloom production. The roses in the 8 inch bed did not go own root, but Dr. H sent roots out under the lawn.

The lesson I learned from my neglected roses is that, if they can come back so strongly with a revitalized soil and a slight change in my cultural practices, I've been underestimating what they can do all along. Every year, I find myself surprised by my roses.

Smiles,
Lyn

cupshaped_roses.....

While I was out doing errands today, it came to me that maybe you can prolong the life of your budded roses by following the cultural practice of rejuvenation pruning every year, which is to remove one or two of the oldest canes every year.

My grafted roses are all 40-50 years old, virused and still going strong.

Smiles,
Lyn

I grow roses for exhibition--I have yet to see an age related decline in the 11 years I've been growing roses.

It depends on your soil, here in Fla. we have nematodes and they love rose-roots- so if you want your roses to live very long, they need to be grafted on Fort.--- I have some that I got back in the '70s and '80s, mostly HTs... and they were decimated not by nematodes but by the chili-thrips and canker....the HTs seem to be more susceptible, I have some OGRs that were not bothered at all....sally

I have some grafted (dr huey) David Austins, Graham Thomas and Heritage. Heritage has RMV, but they are pushing 20 years old. I rarely prune then, except the brown dead wood after winter. And a little shape up here and there.

Strawberryhill, you must live in the same area I do. I also go see that Cantigny rose garden. I love their tropicanas there. Love that rose and still experimenting on ways to grow it successfully in my garden. I have an own root VID and have a multiflora grafted... neither looks real great.

Bluegirl, we call it crepemurder here. The yard maintenance people here "boot" the palm trees (remove fronds), which would be fine, but they take out so many live fronds the trees end up with this weird spiked hairdo. They eventually die, as palms need those fronds to feed themselves. I have very few grafted roses, but I have a friend with only grafted. As soon as they have a flush, she whacks them back and they have to regrow all their foliage and size. Then she wonders why they're dead in three or four years. I've tried to talk to her about this, but for some reason she has the idea in her head that her roses "need" this. I have seen 50 year old roses here grafted on Fortuniana, but roses that old are certainly few and far between here in Florida.

Once we hired some guys for spring clean-up & they 'tidied-up' the azalea beds by raking out the 30+ years of oak leaves we had been adding. Made them put them BACK. I miss all that rich humus we built up over the decades.

I used to load up all the conveniently sacked leaves & grass clippings along our street, too. We never put out any & added our neighbors' stuff to our beds & gardens. Boy, we had some rich stuff & tons of huge earthworms.

The two most difficult things to get through the "gardener's" head (before I finally let him go) were do NOT touch my danged roses...period; and don't blow all the leaves away. Blow, rake or sweep them into the flower beds. There isn't a lawn to mess with but there are leaves from everyone elses' trees. Just blow them into the shrubbery and leave them be. You would have thought I was speaking Martian or something. Kim

LOL, that's the same thing I tell the landscape crew, "don't mess with my roses!" I don't think they comprehend the difference between the HTs and OGRs, but so far they have left them alone which makes me VERY happy.

One exception - Miguel asked me if he could trim back my Mme Alfred Carrierre in order to weed, I told him okay and didn't watch (mistake). Well, she looks like a fountain, but bet it turns out okay as she is a monster no matter what you do. Besides, he's such a cutie, very friendly and polite, works hard and gets a LOT done, so had to forgive him!