Monday, March 5, 2018

Grafted versus own root

A rose is a rose, right?
Well not quite. Roses are sold as two different options. You can buy a rose own root, meaning that the rose is that type from the flowers to the roots. You can buy them grafted, meaning that one piece of rose a is stuck on to the roots of rose b.
An example of grafted roses would be this.
Grafted roses are also often in garden centers in pots. They usually have a big knob where the canes are coming out of, with a smooth section of cane below and then the roots.
An example of a own root rose could look like this.
Own root roses rarely have all their canes coming from one spot. Often they can have canes coming from multiple buds, and even from the roots.
So why buy one over the other? It is still just a rose right? Not so fast. An advantage of own root roses are that if the above ground part of the rose freezes and the roots are alive, they can send up more canes of that rose. A disadvantage of a grafted rose is that if it freezes and the roots are alive, you will end up with a different rose. For example, instead of the yellow rose blooming throughout the summer, you wind up with a spring only red rose.
An advantage of grafted roses are that they are bigger, meaning that they are less likely to be broken accidentally. An advantage of own root roses is that you don't have to worry about the rootstock trying to send up canes of it's own and robbing the desired plant of energy.
I prefer own root roses, however there are good and bad points to both.

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