Hi Folks, I might be (probably am ) wrong but I seem to recall being told or read somewhere that a good rose has only 5 leaves to a stem and if it has 7 then it returning to its wild state. I have a couple with both 7 & 5 should I remove the offending stems?
Hi, Cothey! I'm from the IoW, Bonchurch. Well, previously, I was Bucks. You are correct, five leaves are true, seven means it's gone wild. You should take any stems off that have seven to keep the rose normal ... but I never have! I don't know why this happens but it happens often to me. Liz and Fran are our rose experts here. Fran is away at the moment so maybe Liz will come on here and advise. Welcome to GC and enjoy!
A word of warning - it's true of most roses, but not all!!!!! You need to have a look and see where the 7-leaved bits are coming from - if they're real suckers they'll be from the rootstock.
Most garden roses are budded onto briar (dog rose) or similar more vigorous root stock and it is the root stock shoots that come from beneath the ground and should normally be removed as near the base as possible, digging down until you find where it starts and cut it there. If you can get it with a bit of root on it, plant it out of the way somewhere and if it survives try budding one of you favourite roses onto it next year. My father and grandfather used to bud most of their own roses onto briars they dug from the hedgrows. Cheers MIKE
Further to the above post I just had a quick check on my stock, as a result of a PM from Dendy, I found R.Rugosa has 9, Albas and most ramblers seem to have 7, including recent ones, Hybrid perpetuals and David Austin "English" roses and most other common types look to have 5 so there seems to be no hard and fast rule. Nearest I could get to a rule would be if it comes from below ground and is different from the rest of the rose (leaf colour, number of thorns and a different flower if it gets that far!!) then remove it from as low as you can get. I will try and enquire further when we visit Mottisfont in a week or twos time.
That's all very interesting, Dorsetmike. I did not know about the grafting onto briar / dog rose but I did know most ramblers had seven. It was in the early 80s I had R rugosa as a hedge, one I still find fascinating, but could not remember that it had nine leaves. What Cothey and I were discussing was one that has five then suddenly has a shoot with seven. I said I didn't know why it happened and you have now kindly explained that. dendro, I acknowledge what you were saying!
I tend to be a bit wary, after coming across a rose, where new stems looked so incredibly like a sucker, so very different from the main rose, but actually were the real McCoy...... if I'd taken the lot off there would have been no new growth :eek: I'd agree though, that if a rose has a particular number of leaflets throughout the entire plant and you get one coming from the base with a different number, chances are it'll be a sucker - main thing, as we all seem to agree, is that suckers come from below the main plant, from the rootstock. I have been advised that it's better to tug the offending sucker off, rather than doing a clean cut, although I can't recollect why..... but it was a very good reason! :D
Yep I've heard that too, if you think about it when you cut as in pruning you usually get further shoots appearing from near or at the cut, if you pull a branch off you usually pull part of the main stem away,(sometimes called the heel) this bit of the main stem is probably what was originally the source of the bud which formed the shoot so you don't get a new shoot from there, cos the bud base has gone. Does that make sense? Some plants you can take cuttings from by pulling off a newish shoot with a heel.
Doesn't look like a sucker - you do get variations from time to time. A sucker will come from below the graft of the rose and its rootstck, which may be above, below, or just on the soil surface, but is pretty unmistakeable. If you can't see a join, nad the stem is coming from belw ground, and looks very different from the main rose, usually with a pinkish stem, quite straight, and very vigorous, and thorny, then it's almost certainly a sucker
Thank you all for coming back, I knew I'd heard it somewhere. I was aware of suckers and remove them accordingly, (I did not know why) what caught my attention is that there 7 & 5 on the same branch, of course it is a rambler, I forgot to mention that, it was bought for us so i'll see if I can indetify it.I won't remove anything at the moment anjd see if the blooms are any different. Thanks again. Cothey
Hi Lady of Leisure, Just had a run through your pics, you certainly are making progress. Had your work cut out to start with, well done. We came to the the Island 11 years ago, BEST move we ever made. Good luck Cothey
Evening, Cothey. We bought there in 1999 I think it was, sold this past December. We had a wonderful apartment in Westfield Mansion (King William IV and Queen Adelaide's summer home). We had a verandah one looking over the lawns to the sea on the cliff edge. Exquisite. I'll always miss it. Good luck with you roses.
