I planted my gallicas before I knew about suckering. Charles is just impossible. He's planted in a terraced bed and the suckers have even traveled down and out of the rock in the retaining wall. Belle Isis sends little runners all over that I just cut down. I hope someone has successfully found an answer to this problem. The bamboo barrier sounds like a good idea.

If you purchase them on root stock and don't bury the bud union, will this prevent suckers?

Barbara

We've planted suckering roses in 15-G Squats, sunk in the ground, with rims a couple of ins. above ground level.

They pop up suckers around the vicinity, having gone down through the squats, and back up.
But it DOES generally speaking greatly reduce the number of "escapees."

Jeri

Charles de Mills is beautiful budded. I have semi-contained my plant with a variation on the garbage can method, using a gopher cage with fine mess and by using drip irrigation in a hot, dry summer climate, where nothing survives without water. However, I will say that the suckering makes a better plant. I'd either buy it budded or plant it with a barrier in a location where it can be 5 x 5.

If you are vigilant in digging up suckers, you can contain the space of the gallicas. It's a pain, but doable. I have about 8-10 gallicas and the ones that run the most ones are Rosa Mundi/Apothecary rose, Jenny Duval, and Belle de Crecy. Charles de Mills isn't that bad in my garden, I only had to dispose of 2-3 suckers this year.

Thanks for all the advice. My CdM is coming into it's 3rd year and it's own root. It's planted in a corner formed by a stone retaining wall and an old concrete foundation, so it can only go a certain direction. I suppose I could cut a section of garbage can to form a semicircular barrier. With the amount of time I fuss about in my garden, yanking out a couple suckers doesn't seem that bad. I just don't want it giving the beat down to Botzaris planted next to it.

Can I just be lazy and snip them off at ground level with the pruners? I think I know the answer to this :)

Eric

We've used bamboo barrier in the Sacramento cemetery rose garden, and it works. We've put it a couple of inches above the ground, and covered it lightly with mulch. The barrier is 24" wide thick PVC, and it's not easy to dig a trench that deep! Fortunately, our soil is light and sandy, the bodies are buried at least six feet deep (always a thought when we start to dig in a cemetery!), and we have Americorps and Sheriff's Work Project crew to do the heavy work.

We've contained the most aggressive roses with this - Alba Maximan, the dread Banshee, Therese Bugnet, and an unnamed gallica.

You really can control a suckering rose by digging it out. "Control" means limiting the spread, not eliminating it. Cutting off suckers doesn't do. I had the bright idea to cut off and dab with Roundup some of the Portland Rose suckers, which were taking over a plot. Not only did it not kill them, we got ugly distorted foliage on many of the nearby canes, a reproach to me for using herbicide every time I looked at that rose.

Budding and keeping the graft above the ground does seem to work, but the plant doesn't grow the same. You get more of a vase-shaped arching plant, not that there's anything wrong with that. We've grown budded and own-root Cardinal de Richelieu, Banshee, and Therese Bugnet. Only recently has the budded Therese Bugnet started to sucker - until then, it had a tall, graceful habit with red canes that were very beautiful in fall and winter. I think it's reverting to being a thicket, just like the other one that we grow.
Anita

I've got, I think, three promising suckers on R. arkansana.

When guests were looking at the plant last week (it is wholly dormant --
something rather rare, here -- and quite lovely with all of its bare, deep-mahogany canes)
one guest asked what I was going to "do about" the suckers.

I said that for the present, I was saving them to dig up and give away (since the rose is rather uncommon).
But this R. arkansana is a rather polite sucker-er.
I think it would take a long time for this little plant to become a problem.

Jeri

Thanks Anita! Now I have to find a source for the PVC barrier. I would only have install a section about 3 feet long...in nice clay soil...tee hee. Maybe I'll try populating my parents' back yard with roses.

"the bodies are buried six feet deep"...don't read that in thread every day! :)

Eric

I found I could not manage Charles as he got bigger. Managing the suckers as they appear became impossible. And the more I pulled them up, the more fierce was the response.

Charles had to go. He was thrusting up through other shrubs, splitting perennial clumps and being an overall bully. Some own-root rugosas are just as bad, and they are gone, too. I really miss Rosaraie, but it was worse than Charles. It would send out suckers into the lawn six feet away. After a few years the lawnmower would stall in the sucker-stumps.

I have just a handful of gallicas left and these seem more reasonable. It's really impossible to have a neat mixed bed with gallicas and rugosas. If you're willing to let them do their thing and run down the other plants in their way, then go for it.

Many of my gallicas are grafted on another rootstock to prevent suckering. I have had to be more mindful of space since moving from the country.

If you are creating a bed or have diggable soil you can use landscape fabric-yes there is a use for the stuff. Make a big hole and double line it-go deeper than usual for the anchor roots and fill it all back up-planting your rose of course. I have also used squats, garbage cans and those paper pots that roses come in-they take years to break down. Nothing is forever.

patricia

I never knew the gallicas suckered that bad. CDM sounds like a flowering bamboo with thorns. And albas can do the same?

Bamboo is worse. Much worse. Roses don't seem to go much below 12" and don't go over the top of barriers the way that bamboo does, at least in my experience in the cemetery.

However, you don't usually plant bamboo in the middle of your perennial bed, so in that way, the roses are worse. Thorns, too.

We made the mistake of trying to use landscape fabric to contol the suckering roses - the canes just traveled to the edge, and popped up there. What a mess. Peter Boyd said not to use any sort of weed barrier for Spinosissimas, either, for the same reason. He said they'd sucker more compactly and modestly if you just let them go.

Albas do sucker, at least here in Sacramento. My friend has Chloris, which pops up all over his garden. At least it's thornless. Alba Maxima is pretty aggressive. We have a Blanche de Belgique that everybody loves for its gorgeous, vase-shaped, tree-like form. One day I realized, "It's grafted!" It was one of the roses planted 20 years ago, when nobody was paying much attention to the source of the roses or how they were propagated. It's gorgeous, so I'm not complaining, but I do wonder how an own-root plant of it would grow.

One of the nice things about suckers is that you can readily propagate.
Anita