I'm not laughing. It can be a confusing subject. Grafting is when you take the roots and base (the big knobby part just below where the canes come up) from one plant variety and splice on a bud eye or cane from another plant variety. The base plant and roots remain their own variety and the spliced part remains it's own variety. They grow in that manner never mixing genetic material. If you take a cutting from the canes and root that you have an own root plant of the spliced on variety. It is no longer a grafted plant and will not have any of the characteristics of the root stock from the original grafted rose. The reason some roses are grafted is that they are not as strong a grower as the root stock variety. There are other reasons but that is the usual one. By grafting to a very hardy root stock you can improve the vigor of the rose. That does not mean that own root plants are weak. They may take longer to become mature and establilshed but will usually catch up to their grafted counter parts with time. Some cold climate growers prefer own root plants because of winter die back. If the plant dies to the ground and comes back it will come back as the true variety if it is own root. With grafted roses if they die back that far you may be left with nothing but the root stock and the rose will come back as the root plant not the spliced on variety. I hope this helps.

So that means if someone has a rose grafted on multiflora, which I do not prefer because of my pH, they could take a cutting for me and it would become an own root plant, which I could grow. Is that right?

Yup, that's right, and a nice explanation by Seil, too.

Yep, or you could grow the rose in a pot and take a cutting for your garden.

Seil,
WOW! You really explained that well. Must be that Michigan blood in you that makes you so smart!

Deb,
Ripples are cut and in the misting tents now. Got them today.

Thank you Michael and Mike. I do what I can.