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Own Root Roses
By: Elisabeth Ginsburg  

One look at any of the twenty-five rose varieties in the new Easy Elegance® line is enough to tell you why the flowers have been called “elegant”. But what about the “easy” part? For generations the reality of growing roses has made many gardeners distinctly “uneasy”. Roses are beautiful, but that beauty comes at a cost, which often includes regular chemical treatment for pests and diseases, not to mention coddling and wrapping to help delicate plants survive the winters in cold-weather climates.
Easy Elegance® roses put an end to all that. They are “easy” because veteran rose breeder Ping Lim has selected only the hardiest, most beautiful specimens for inclusion in this unique line of plants. Rose plants in Lim’s breeding program are subjected to actual growing conditions—including wide variations in temperature—and must survive without sprays or other chemical treatments. Selective breeding, which involves weeding out all but the toughest plants in every phase of the process, accounts for part of the Easy Elegance® roses’ toughness; own root culture accounts for the rest.
How is an own root rose different from other commercially available roses? Most roses are propagated by grafting, a technique that involves inserting a cutting from a named rose variety into a rootstock from another variety. Eventually the cutting and the rootstock fuse, creating a single plant with a thickening or knot in the central trunk where the graft was made. The tough, hardy rootstock provides the vigor that allows the less hardy, named variety to flourish.

Pink Pearls
 The problem with grafted roses is that the named variety can succumb to severe weather—especially cold winter conditions. When this happens, the shrub’s top growth dies off, and if the plant regrows in the spring, the blossoms will be the inferior ones of the rootstock, not the named variety that you purchased.
Another challenge for growers of grafted roses is root suckers, which are canes that sprout up from the rootstock and compete with the named variety for water and nutrients. If the root suckers are not pruned away promptly, they almost always outcompete the named variety, negating your investment.

Yellow Submarine

Easy Elegance® own root roses don’t have these problems because each shrub is a single plant, not two plants grafted together. When subjected to extremely cold winters, the top growth may die back—even to the ground—but when the shrub sends up new canes in the spring, they will produce the same blooms that inspired your initial purchase. Root suckers are not a problem because there is no competition between two rose varieties.

Ping Lim’s Easy Elegance® roses are best sellers because of their beauty. They are a great investment because they grow on their own roots.

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