Ever wondered what those long shoots that appear from the base of your roses are called and how they are relevant for growing great roses. Now is your chance to find out.
These shoots, often red in colour and soft in growth, are appearing from now on and are called basal shoots. They are the lifeblood of roses as they are the means by which our rose plants, whether they are cutting grown or grafted, keep on rejuvenating themselves. Some books refer to them as water shoots but in New Zealand, basal shoots are what they are called and referred to.
The number and frequency of basal shoot production varies according to cultivar. Some have no problem putting up one or two (or even more) a year while others are stingy, sometimes putting out a new one every three years.
Whatever the rose, you must look after them as they are the future of your rose. Don’t do what some books say and cut them off, rather leave and support them. Wind is by far the biggest enemy and it is a rosarians nightmare to go out in the garden after a spring gale and pick up shoots that have been blown over.
To reduce the chances of losing basals, you can do two things. First, stake them well but don’t tie it too tight as you need to allow for some movement when the inevitable big blow does come.
If some of your roses aren’t producing enough basals, you can encourage more by giving the crown a light scratch with a wire brush. This removes old, flaky bark and whatever else has accumulated there giving new basals a chance to grow. Just be careful not to accidently remove any that have already started to grow.
Don’t confuse basal growths with suckers, which occur if your roses are grated. A sucker is a growth of the rootstock onto what the variety has been budded and are undesirable. The rootstock is very vigorous and if not controlled, will completely take over and potentially kill the rose variety you are growing.
There are a number of key differences between basal shoots, which makes identification easy. Firstly, suckers grow from below the bud union while basal shoots grow from the bud union. Suckers can also be identified by the lack of thorns on the stems, the leaf colour, which is a lighter green and the number of leaflets, which is 7-9 per leaf (most rose cultivars have 5 leaflets per leaf).
There is little you can do to prevent suckers from occurring and usually doesn’t show up in new season’s roses until September.
It is a problem that can be traced back to the nursery and how the rootstock cutting was prepared. 
To remove suckers, scrape away the soil from around your rose to locate where the sucker is originating (remembering that basal shoots originate from the bud union and suckers from anywhere beneath this. It is best to pull the suckers off although you also can cut them off with a sharp knife, but try and get as close to the stem as possible as some buds can be left to grow at the base. Keep an eye on your plant(s) in case the suckers regrow.
By Hayden Foulds