It's difficult to tell when they're that young, unless they're obviously suckering 10 inches away from the graft. Once the leaves harden compare them to Julia Child. Otherwise, wait if the shoot develops terminal flower buds because almost all rootstocks only bloom on last year's wood.

I've transplanted old roses that had every cane die, but the following year produced new true canes from well below the graft union, if I had mistakenly removed those as rootstock I would have accidentally killed my rose.

What romogen said - let them grow, and you will find out for sure.

Jackie

Ok I will let them grow. It might be own root. I had another basal on this Julia child earlier this season so it seems to be doing well.

Moses -- your mentor was not entirely correct. There are rootstocks which are as he described, but not all are. The red coloration to new growth is a trait coming from Chinas and Teas, and 'Dr. Huey' exhibits this trait because it was bred from 'Gruss an Teplitz'. If you live in a very cold zone, your rootstock may be R. multiflora, and that would appear as your mentor described.

:-)

~Christopher

Thank you Christopher for clearing up the "conventional wisdom" about root stock. It is interesting to me, because I gardened with & around roses for at least 10 years before it dawned on me that "root stock" is just another rose, period (I think I had the vague idea it was some sort of unique underground rose which was dangerous!). Many of them are old roses, thus the canard about them always having 7 leaflets. I guess the "green color" is specific to one rose used for rootstock in one place and at one period. I was also told they were always once bloomers, which of course is not correct either (I have a lovely bush of some sort of odorata which I believe was root stock on some long gone rose, and of course it is a re-bloomer - pic below - it is of course the white one).

I find it so interesting how roses - how to prune them, how to care for them (MUST be sprayed every 2 weeks!), what root stock is, accumulated such a large baggage of "old wives tales". Most of the tales seem to pertain only to mid 20th century HTs, but it amazes me how they persist. Sad, because they scare people off trying to grow roses sometimes. Thank heavens that there are many new roses which truly are "easy care", and also that the old old roes are becoming more popular (at least here in No Calif.- the warm weather types are so easy to grow it is almost embarrassing).

Jackie

I was used to pruning a hp by a third like a hybrid tea twice a season before I knew much about ogrs and never had any issues. You can also see a roses durability when you see unmaintained cemeteries. They're tough plants.

Yes, that was my point - they are amazingly tough plants (the 4 roses in the above pic NEVER get pruned, except I try to take off obvious dead parts, and they get some osmocote thrown at their bases once a year, and a little summer water during our normal 6-7 month summer drought. No spraying, ever, and they are currently stopping foot traffic (pic taken from the sidewalk) along our street. I have had to go out several times in the past 2-3 days to answer questions about them.

Jackie

Dr Huey generally sends up shoots from outside. When they get bigger they throw out long thorny canes my husband hates when he mows. Flowers are worthy of a bouquet but the canes need to be cut off after that.

Checked it today and it is a own root Julia child.

I too have noticed that suckers from Fortuniana rootstock , are always green unlike new basal shoots which are usually red . Fortuniana grafted roses suckers a lot for me and can easily be removed since the graft is a few inches over the ground in FL .