Is it grafted? That could be a sucker.

I don't have Munstead Wood but I would definitely believe it! I'm in Sydney and all my supposedly shorter Austins have done this too. Wife of Bath, The Prince, Prospero, Tamora and a few others. They produce a cluster of flowers at the top, about 7ft up in the air. I grumpily chopped them back midsummer to a "reasonable" size and they just did it again. I also had Claire Rose produce canes that were nearly 3m tall, but I realised she was climbing to get more sun. The others all get 8hrs a day so not sure what excuse they have!

Yes, its grafted, but the cane is coming directly from the graft union, so I'm pretty sure its not rootstock/sucker. We barely even get frosts here, so I always plant with the graft union about 3 cm up for easy identification That was the first thing I checked :) The leaves and thorns seem just the same as the original ones..

I was so happy to see it, and even that it was going straight up, as the rest of the bush is kinda lopsided. but now- gahh it really does look a mutant...

I've been safe from the Octopus brigade so far Brightstar- I've chucked Tamora and Claire Rose, but that was due to refusing to produce anything but nasty blowsy pinky blooms that blew in a day, or blooms that balled or not producing at all, respectively. Wife of Bath and Prospero are keepers - the Prince is on probation for general wimpiness and unwillingness to produce anything but bullnosed blooms. But I wouldnt be without Redoute, Mary Magdalene or Charles Rennie Mckintosh..

Unless you really, really don't like the look of it, I'd let it go and see what happens. When I see a cane like this, I assist in bending it into an arch and letting side shoots emerge from the sky-facing leaf nodes. It creates blooms on each new shoot that I cut and bring indoors.

Sometimes canes like can be the reaction of a localized concentration of fertilizer or nutrients located on or near the end branches of one of the main roots. This can happen when simple watering draws nutrients to a concentrated location - due to uneven distribtution of fertilizer sown on the surface or wanderings of the soil structure below the surface - where it "pools" to be taken up by a root that finds it. It's like the root got shot with steroids and transmitted the energy to a single cane.

There can be a (minor) down side: Since much energy is diverted to one cane, the other canes may not reap the benefits and may grow/develop more slowly than if energy to the canes were more evenly distributed.

If it was me, I'd prune it back in alignment with the rest of the bush so as a young bush it can focus on root development and overall health. Though I wonder if you pegged it or just tied it horizontally along a fence, etc. you'd get breaks and potentially, blooms all along that beautiful cane? I did this with The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild (another second year Austin) this year and there are lateral break blooms popping up. Let us know what you decide and how it turns out. :-)

So many of the Austins do that in mild climates . . .

I tried and failed to keep the Austin octopi reasonable in size, and promote bloom. Cutting them back didn't help one bit. Pegging them to the ground induced general die-back. I think the only hope for those roses is to espalier them to just above the horizontal ... but I had no space to do that.

And that, my children, is why I have very few Austins (tho I love the few we've kept).

My MW is grafted on Doc Huey and in a large pot. It threw out a huge cane like that too-about 8ft tall. It is definitely coming from MW and not DH. I let it hang over sideways and it is in full sun. Now its full of laterals that are just starting to bloom nicely. I think I will put it on a pillar and twist the longer canes around it since they like to make laterals.

Funny to hear that. I have other Austins that grow like mad but my 3 MWs have stayed very compact... Still, this cane with 7 leaflets to a leaf looks very much like a sucker to me..

I agree. I cannot see (even blown up) any leaves on the small part of the bush which have more than 5 leaflets, whereas almost all of them on the tall cane have seven. This implies that it is indeed rootstock.

The best way to find out what it is is to let the tall cane bloom - then you will know for sure.

Also, I found a pic on HMF of a bush which was definitely Munstead Wood, growing in Europe in zone 6 - the poster said it was 170 cm high and wide! It looked great, but definitely not small.

Many many Austin roses get larger than they do in England, sometimes 2 or 3 times larger, in warm climates. This rose was only introduced in 2007, so perhaps that has not been documented well yet, but I would not be surprised if this is one of them.

Do post a pic of the bloom(s) when they appear on you long cane, and if it is not MW, someone on here will be able to identify it for you -

Jackie

Heres my MW long branch with the blooming laterals i case u need it for comparisonhere it is coming off the graft( below pic)..sorry for my messy experiments and gh behind it lol. You can see the branch leans way over and leans on some wire i have covering my waterlily tub behind it.

closeup of a MW bloom mingling w Pat Austin. I am finding all the austins that I have will bloom on those long canes on laterals IF they get full sun directly on those bent over canes. Full sun here does include a lot of humidity so less intense on the canes than in some more desert places.

I see that sultry_jasmine's long shoot has five leaves compared to your seven and I tend to also think it might be the rootstock. Of course waiting for it to bloom will nail down the answer for you.

I discovered a triffid shoot on Marianne today. I'd pruned the bush to a proper regular gallica height when I noticed that one long shoot had disappeared through the neighbour's lilac hedge and came out on the other side, 9 or 10 feet long. I pulled it out and decided to leave it and see what happens. The shoot leant towards the purple Jackman clematis nearby and if they bloom at the same time the contrast may be interesting.

Now I do feel a bit dim :) Thanks Nick, Jackie and Ingrid for pointing out the 7 leaflets issue- I was so sure it was a weirdo octopus cane ( in my defense, it really is coming straight from the graft , and the general thorniness and leaf size is the same as the rest of it) that I didn't even think to count the leaves. But no matter how many times I do, there's still seven of em on this particular cane and only 5 on the rest of the bush. grr. So I think that's a positive for rootstock. I could wait for it to flower, but as that probably wont be til next spring ( there's no signs of bud formation yet) and the odds aren't good it is MW, I think Id rather just ditch it, rather than wait..

The nice fresh green cane in the middle to the right of the crappy worn out one and to the left of the still serviceable but older green cane is the monster-

Actually, its almost growing out on top/to the side of the older green cane...so much so I'm worried about damaging the still good cane if I rip out the rootstock one...

I know that the preferred removal method is just to rip it out/break it away, ( and I have done it before for suckers coming up below the graft) but can you get away with a really close prune?

And thank you all again for the help and advice -you guys are great :)

I would seriously leave it alone - but I love to let mystery canes bloom. I got one of my most favorite roses in the garden that way. It is de la Grifferaie, one of the most gorgeous roses I have ever seen. Yes, it was rootstock (I confirmed that it was used as that around here), but WOW! A once bloomer, but I like it so much better than the boring yellow rose tree (which had already been taken out when the de la Grifferaie canes came up).

Or, it could be a sport of some sort, especially as I agree the place it is coming from looks like it is the scion rose. If you don't want to leave it, perhaps you could root it and see what it is. That's just me, though - I am always interested in what mystery rose things might be.

Jackie

The difference in the number of leaflets is an indication but not a sure sign of the cane being a different rose. Very strong canes sometimes do that. Plus, the thorns look similar. You are right, the spot it stems from sure looks like it is from MW. If you prune it at some point, that may cause flowering laterals to form. I would prune it at some convenient height and leave it alone while monitoring it.

My 'Munstead Wood' has 7 leaflets per leaf, and it has bloomed MW, so I know it's MW.

Based on the prickles, which are nasty on MW, I'd say it's MW. It's just a really happy MW. Shame on you, making a rose happy. ;^)

Munstead Wood for me, if you look at the last photo of the new cane it is on old wood and the old wood thorns/prickles are the same, it is also above the graft, it was told to me by David Austin staff in England some of his roses will get to be climbers in our climate(australia), maybe short climbers. I would leave the cane to see the flower. Where was it purchased, this will also determine the sort of rootstock it "could" be as different nurseries use different rootstocks.

So funny. I was explaining to someone today what a triffid was, and then I saw this post right after.

I'm afraid that The Countryman is eventually going to do this. Hasn't yet, but I feel it's just a matter of time...