I don't know if it's available to you but the dog rose variety Rosa canina inermis (meaning unarmed, i.e. thornless) is one of the most common understocks in Northern Europe and it certainly suckers. It blooms only once with pale pink flowers.

The only other thornless roses I grow are the climber Lykkefund and the alba Chloris but I don't know if they would sucker on their own roots. I think Lykkefund would make a nice low carpet without support.

Perhaps 'R. blanda' or 'R. foliolosa'? Maybe a thornless 'R. wichuraiana' where you want something that hugs the ground?

:-)

~Christopher

Chloris suckers. However, it also blackspots if that is a problem.

Wow, thanks everyone for the excellent suggestions!

Luckily I have lots of room so I can choose more than one.

Chloris is amazingly beautiful so I will definitely include her. I think I read somewhere that she suckers "alarmingly" so that should be perfect.

R. blanda and foliolosa are also great ideas - and I see R. blanda is endangered in at least part of its range, so I'll get that one ASAP.

R. canina I think is invasive around here...have to look into that, may want to avoid it.

Lykkefund - WOW! That one's gorgeous! At 20' it is bigger than I want for the current purpose, but I will put it on my list for the future!

Thanks again to all of you, I really appreciate the pointers!

Best,
SG

Apparently Charles de Mills has few thorns (still has some though), and from what I've read about him, he's the king of suckering! Cardinal de Richelieu and Nestor has even less thorns (from what I've read) and some of the other Gallicas are low on thorns too. I have a similar slope that I'd like to try some Gallicas on. I'm also putting in some rugosas and hoping they will sucker... Those are definitely NOT thornless though, hah.

This post was edited by muscovyduckling on Fri, Aug 8, 14 at 7:02

Thanks for the additional suggestions! I will check them out.