Free growing roses on their own roots

Chapter 6 (extract) of "Roses for English Gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll extols the advantages of plants grown on their own roots, i.e. propagated by cuttings, rather than grafted.

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Illustration: Dundee rambler on its own roots

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CHAPTER VI

ROSES ON THEIR OWN ROOTS

Many of our ordinary garden Roses are necessarily own root plants. This is because they are so easily propagated by other methods than budding. Provence, Damask, the albas and the Briers increase by suckers, Sweet-brier by seed or cuttings, and the free-growing Ayrshires and multiflora hybrids by cuttings or layers. But there are many gardens where other Roses, especially the Teas and Hybrid Teas, kinds that with rare exceptions are sold grafted, would be better on their own roots.

Such plants have several advantages. They are much longer lived, they give more bloom, they bloom more continuously, and they throw up no troublesome suckers.

The common Dog Rose, the most usual stock in England, is very troublesome in the way of suckers, and often in the case of Roses from some good foreign raiser, the stock, if not carefully watched, will overpower the scion, and we find we have a flourishing bush certainly, but of Manetti or of De la Grifferaie instead of the Rose desired.

Grafted plants may be best for the production of show blooms, but the bush that is to produce the show bloom is to a great extent reared and nurtured for that purpose, and the severe pruning to encourage larger flowers and the shading to preserve colour put the plant that is to bear them out of the category of beautiful things in the garden, whereas the own root Roses, bearing slightly smaller flowers — though there are exceptions even to this — fulfil their best purpose as true garden plants.

There can be no doubt that on rather light soils and quite poor ones—not of course left to themselves, but moderately and reasonably improved—own root Roses of the kinds classed as show Roses do better than grafted. This being so, and their other advantages being considered, it seems strange that they are not oftener so grown. Moreover they strike readily in July and August, so that if they cannot be obtained elsewhere, they can easily be made at home from grafted plants.

Every one who has grown Roses on a poor or dry soil, even when beds have been well prepared and duly mulched and all reasonable care given, knows only too well that sad, worn-out look of unhappy grafted Roses, some three years after planting. There are varieties that to the Rose lover are indispensable, such as Catherine Mermet, a kind that will do quite well in such soils on its own roots, whereas the same grand Rose grafted is a total failure.

There is also a satisfaction in knowing just what one is growing. If a Rose is on its own roots there is no doubt about its identity. If it fails after reasonable trial we may know that the Rose itself will not be happy, and not that it is perhaps a tantrum of the stock — maybe we do not even know what stock!

Then the foreign stocks are plants from various parts of Europe, perhaps from soils of quite different chemical constituents. Some particular stock may not suit some particular garden, so that the grower's perplexities are much increased, and he is offered additional chances of going wrong. If the plant is on its own roots and fairly treated it does well or it does not, and there the matter ends.