They do well in our climate, but you’ll have to send away for them
rootstock a few years ago at a rose society meeting. The presenter, master rosarian Dona Martin, told us that rose plants grafted onor on their own root. That caught my interest. Then she said that the blooms grown onrootstock were more bountiful, and also bigger and better. Wait! What? She had us all at “bountiful, bigger and better” blooms. You could have heard a pin drop as we all listened intently to find out about this magical rootstock.
‘Beverly’ grafted onto Fortuniana rootstock sent out 6-foot canes in the first six months. It has been reined into a pillar structure. had a remarkable resistance to heat stress and had triple the growth rate of other roses in their first year. Martin told us that a rose grown oncould have five times the number of feeder roots, and a root mass that could be six times larger than a rose grown ongrafted roses. They are not available in local nurseries, and you need to special order these roses from specialty nurseries online. I ordered ‘Playgirl’ and ‘Oh My!’ from K & M Nursery in Bucatunna, Miss., in 2019.