Rose changing color???

Discussion in 'Rosa (roses)' started by Zwaantje, Jun 16, 2006.

  1. Zwaantje

    Zwaantje Member

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    We have had this rose for about 6 years now. It has grown and bloomed every year, but in general never done very well, probably due to the huge amount of Japanese beatles we have every summer and the harsh temperatures in the winter (Vermont, zone 4)

    I have forgotten the name, the color is light pink, when the blooms are open all the way it is pretty much almost white. I prune it every year, it is NOT grafted.

    On the branches that it has had light pink to white flowers on every year it now has dark burgundy buds. I am stunned to say the least. I knew that minerals can change the color of hydrangea but roses???

    Does anyone have an explanation for this?
     
  2. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    'Dr. Huey' rootstock. Apparently grafted afterall. Spellcheck: beetles. Beatles were the rock group, the name being a pun.
     
  3. Laurie

    Laurie Active Member Maple Society 10 Years

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    Yes, I was wondering why you were confident that the rose is not grafted. Is this rose a hybrid tea? Are there no canes with pink flowers this year? It does sound like Dr. Huey, the understock that is used most often for grafting. I see alot of it in gardens in Zone 6, where my mom lives. Kudos to you for persevering with roses in Zone 4. Fortunately, to my knowledge, we do not yet have to deal with those beastly beetles here in western Washington. If you wish to continue to grow roses, some authors advise planting the bud union up to six inches below the soil level, and others recommend hardy varieties on their own roots. J&P claims that they do extensive testing on their new line of own root roses, including a "digging test" to examine the health of the root systems. As far as this rose, you can prune off all of the canes that are not the original rose, even if that is every cane. Push the soil aside to expose the bud union to sun, fertilize as usual, and many rosarians will advise to add a quarter to half a cup of epsom salts as well to promote new basal breaks from the bud union. Then wait to see if you get new growth. It may be difficult if the bush has been suffering from constant munching. If you do not find a bud union, it is extremely unlikely that this bush is "sporting", so please attach a photograph if you can.
     
  4. Zwaantje

    Zwaantje Member

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    Thanks Ron, also for the English lesson. It is not my first language, that is as good as my excuse will ever be.

    What really gets me is that - like I said - stems that have had the lt. pink roses for several years, now have the dark burgundy buds. Is that normal??
     
  5. Zwaantje

    Zwaantje Member

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    No, not one light pink bud so far and I've checked it out very carefully.
    I don't know what kind it is. I have saved the tag for years and years, and now that I need it I can't #&^$! find it.

    The reason I do not believe it is grafted is that I have had it since it was a tiny plant, and I thought that I probably would have noticed the base being obviously a piece of a branche .. does that make sence?

    There have been times I thought it had given up the ghoast, but then, after a lot of TLC, it came back. How can you not love a plant like that...?

    Can I still do that this season? Or should I wait until next year?

    I will do that. In the meantime, could you please explain "sporting" ? I am not burdened with any knowledge I am afraid :-)
     
  6. Laurie

    Laurie Active Member Maple Society 10 Years

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    One of the more common examples of a sport is a change in color of the rose on one of the canes, which has been propagated and put into commerce. At the following link, you can see an example of a sport in the side-by-side photographs of the award-winning ‘Westerland’ and its sport ‘Autumn Sunset’: http://www.rose-roses.com/issues/sport.html. Other examples of a change in color are the highly recommended floribunda ‘Livin’ Easy’ and its sport ‘Easy Going’; the David Austin rose ‘Hero’ and its sport ‘Huntington Hero’; and the hybrid tea ‘Peace’ and one of its sports ‘Chicago Peace’. It is my understanding that the climbing version of a rose is also a sport of that rose. It is written that the class of roses called Mosses first originated as a sport of the Centifolia rose, although this is debated. Mosses “bear on their flower-stems and sepals a mutation of the glands making it appear as if a green or reddish-brown moss were growing there, adding a unique delicacy to the buds,” which if brushed often give off a pine-like scent. http://www.mc.edu/campus/users/nettles/rofaq/rofaq-or.html.
    It is written by some authors, most notably Susan Verrier in Rosa Rugosa, which apparently was republished by Firefly in 1999, that ‘Souvenir de Philemon Cochet’ is a sport of the excellent hybrid rugosa ‘Blanc Double de Coubert’. If you love and want to grow more roses, I encourage you to read about the rugosas and rugosa hybrids; Verrier lives and gardens in Maine. Check out the reviews of her book at amazon.com. Collectively the rugosas offer disease resistance, fragrance, fall color, and hips; Verrier rates them on hardiness as well. Also check out http://www.highcountryroses.com/var.html for other ideas for hardy roses.
    Your pink rose may have suffered this winter if, all of the sudden, you have only the understock. After the blooms open and you confirm that you have Dr. Huey, pull the dirt away from the bud union and stem below, then try to prune off all of the canes as low as you can, then replace the dirt, leaving the bud union open to the sun. Although you are not likely to find the following advice in books, a rosarian here showed me how to cut off the outer dead wood on the bud union to expose new fresh wood. The chances of new canes emerging at this point are not great, so we try to do as much as we can to help save the rose. Roses are graded (#1, #1½, #2), and some can have quite a small little knob there at the bud union, so perhaps it was not noticeable. Perhaps that is why you thought you had an own-root rose.
    By the way, your English is quite good; grammar is more important than spelling, right? (Note: sense; ghost; branch.) You may be reminded of the name of your rose, when looking through books with photographs of roses, especially those books that arrange them by color. Is it possible that it is ‘Pristine’ (rated to Zone 7)?
     
  7. Laurie

    Laurie Active Member Maple Society 10 Years

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    Here is a photograph of an example of the rootstock – probably Dr. Huey - onto which my beloved ‘Othello’ is grafted, growing quite vigorously from about six inches below the bud union. In the first photograph, the bud union, from which several canes of ‘Othello’ are growing, is on the left, and the sucker canes, nearly 15 inches tall, from the rootstock are on the right. Sometimes these sucker canes grow right through the grafted rose’s canes, and it can be confusing. Typically, one would cut them as soon as they are discovered, because all of the plant's energy is going to those sucker canes, but here I wanted to photograph them first. In the second photograph, the suckers have been removed, and the pot has been turned to reveal a new cane of the desired ‘Othello’ growing from the bud union. The soil level would typically be anywhere from just under the bud union in warmer climates to six inches above the bud union in the coldest climates. Here I have run out of potting soil, and there is no problem with the graft being exposed.
     

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  8. Dannyy

    Dannyy Member

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    I have a rose, it started out as 2 different types of plants when my mother plated them yeas a go. They had dyed back for years. I was digging them up one day and saw that there was some new shoots coming off them so I let them grow. And now they start off yellow and goes to a yellowish white, as them get older.
    here are some picks.
     

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    Last edited: Sep 27, 2009
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  9. faraza

    faraza Member

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    Hey guys,

    I have the same Rose plant as the one Danny has in the Picture and the same exact thing happened with my rose this year. The plant grew another shoot from the very bottom of the plant and you can see where it splits and one side had those huge roses and the other side has medium sized roses that are maroon in color! Even the size of the leaves are different! My mother is convinced that I grew something else next to it. I joined this site just to find this an answer to this... I guess this could happen if the plant was a hybrid of some sort.
     
  10. Weekend Gardener

    Weekend Gardener Active Member 10 Years

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    Rose flowers on the same plant can have quite different colours. The classic example is my climbing Peace. Right now, it is full of blooms, and the colour ranges from pale, blush pink to deep, rich almost orange with near crimson fringes. It's the same every year. It has happened to my Evelyn - there was even one bloom where one half is pale pink and the other half a rich peach. But in spite of the differences in colour, the forms of the flowers are always similar. Same with sports - if you are fortunate enough to see one crop up in your plants. It happened with the David Austin, Heritage in my garden two years ago - one cane, clearly from the parent scion, not the rootstock, had flowers that were pure white. Here again, the blooms have the same form, albeit slightly smaller. The flowers on this sport were inferior to the rest of the plant - smaller, non-fragrant, and very sort lasting. So, I pruned it off.

    If what you get is a cane carrying flowers with a different colour and different form (the number of petals, shape an size of the flower, the arrangements of the petals, etc) from what you expect for the variety, than, it is a different variety. And the amost universal way that this happens is that the cane has sprouted from the rootstock - which is always different from the ornamental variety it carries. The leaves, cane, thorns, growth habit will look different too. The common root stocks are Dr. Hueys. Dr. Huey wants to pretend to be a climber and has long lanky canes that bloom only once a year.

    Mail order houses in Canada may prefer to graft on to R multiflora root stocks (Pickering's and Palatine's use multiflora). One way to identify this is to trace the cane with the odd flowers down. This cane should originate from below all the canes that carry the expected ornamental variety of flowers. However, if your rose's bud union is buried underground, and it has been like that for many years, it may make it more difficult to identify.

    Look at the pictures of Dr. Huey's flowers from this gallery Helpmefind.comand see if your flower is similar. If so, it definitely is Dr. Huey - an inferior rose that is not worth growing. But that's my personal opinion.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2010
  11. faraza

    faraza Member

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    wow that is the exact plant I have and I can see where it split at the very base of the main shoot... you can see how it grows in this picture..
     

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