Weekend Win: This Quick August Job Will Bring Bigger, Better Roses Next Summer

• RATING: Easy
• TIME: 10 minutes
• REWARD: Bigger, better rose blooms next year

When a rose is under stress, it often produces suckers that steal food and water from your plant, resulting in fewer, smaller flowers next year. August is a prime time for rose suckers to form, and you can bet your bottom dollar that after this hot, dry El Niño summer, your rose plants are feeling pretty stressed right now. So, the chances of them growing some pesky rogue suckers? Sky high.

The problem with rose suckers is that they grow from a part of the plant that can produce very vigorous growth, so if you leave them to grow they can quickly take over, starving the flowering stems. But it’s an easy 10-minute job to remove rose suckers, even if you’re a beginner gardener, and then your plant can direct all its energy into growing the stems that will support next year’s flowers instead.

Ready for this important element of August rose care? Here’s exactly how to prune rose suckers.

Why Rose Suckers are a Problem

Most modern roses are a result of grafting (fusing) a rose variety with the desired flowers onto the root system of a different, far more enthusiastic rose variety. So, the top of the plant is one rose variety, and the bottom is another variety. This achieves the happy combination of beauty and strength and a plant that produces exquisite blooms month after month and survives winter unscathed.

However, the problem with stress-induced rose suckers is that they emerge from the other rose variety that has its roots sunk into the ground. That means the suckers are vigorous and grow quickly, using up a lot of energy and overtaking the main stems. Leave them be and they will flower – but you won’t get blooms like those on the main plant, but flowers from the other variety. Because this rootstock variety has been chosen for its vigor and not its ornamental value, these will likely be small, single-petaled flowers in a pale pink, white or plain red.

Those suckers can be so boisterous that they can starve the main plant entirely – and that's why getting rid of suckers is such an important part of summer rose care.

How to Get Rid of Rose Suckers in August

1. Find the Knobble on the Main Stem

All grafted roses have a thick, swollen section low down on the main stem, right at the base. This might be just above the soil surface or a couple of inches below it, so you may need to scrape away the top layer of dirt to find it. This is the graft, or bud union, the point where the desired rose variety was fused onto the rootstock variety. Everything on or above this bulge is the rose variety you want to grow; everything below it is the vigorous rootstock that's fuelling that ornamental variety.

2. Identify the Suckers

Any stems that grow out of the sides of or above this bulge belong to the rose variety you do want. Your rose may well be growing new stems from this bulge right now, and these are called basal stems. Leave these be, as they’ll mature and eventually grow flowers of the variety you want.

However, any new stems growing from below that bulge are suckers belonging to the variety you don't want to flower. You might spot new vertical stems emerging from the soil away from the main base, too, and these will be suckers emerging from lower down the rootstock.

The stem’s appearance can give you clues as to whether it’s a beneficial basal stem or a pesky sucker. Suckers tend to be green with duller leaves and fewer thorns, and shoot straight up. Sometimes the leaves of suckers can look lighter to those on the main portion of the plant, and sport a different number of leaflets.

Basal shoots are likely to have more thorns and may have a hint of red on the stem and leaves, and the foliage will better match that of the main plant.

Once you start regularly checking your roses for suckers, you’ll quickly learn to recognise the difference, and the longer you leave them to grow, the more obvious the differences become. But while you’re getting to know your rose, the only sure way to identify whether that stem is a keeper or a loser is to find its point of origin.

3. Remove the Suckers

Wearing a pair of thornproof gauntlet gloves like these Rose Pruning Gloves from Walmart, dig down as far as you can towards the point the sucker emerges from the rootstock. Aim to disturb as little soil as possible, so use a narrow, pointed transplanting trowel such as this Corona Transplanter from Lowe’s or a Hori Hori Garden Knife like this Workpro Hori Hori from Amazon. You’re not creating a hole, just freeing the sucker so you can pull it out at its point of origin.

Then grip near the bottom of the sucker and give it a sharp, firm tug to tear it from its base. Ripping it out is a better method than cutting as the sucker is far less likely to regrow. To finish, firm any displaced soil back around the roots.

What About Suckers on Tree Roses?

Standard or tree roses are those with a ball or crown of flowering stems atop a taller trunk. The graft union on standard roses is at the top of the trunk, and you’ll clearly see a swollen bulge from where all the flowering stems emerge.

Because the main vertical stem is part of the vigorous rootstock, as well as tearing out the suckers that emerge from the ground, you need to trim any side stems that grow from this trunk. Simply use a pair of hand pruners such as these Fiskars Steel-Blade Pruners from Walmart to cut these shoots off flush with the trunk. Do sharpen your blades first as clean cuts are easier for the plant to heal, and it’s a two-minute task with a tool such as this $7 Garden Guru blade sharpener from Amazon.

Keep an Eye Out for More Suckers

August is peak time for rose suckers and the younger those stems are when you pull them, the easier it is to remove them, and the less energy they’ll suck from your plant. But do keep an eye out all through spring and summer, checking around once a month and removing any that you spot.

While summer heat stress is a big trigger, any stimulation to the rootstock or graft union such as an accidental knock with the lawn mower or frost damage, can cause suckers to grow.

As you learn to recognise what’s a sucker and what’s a basal stem, you’ll be able to remove suckers when they’re very small, saving your plant valuable energy.

Add removing suckers to your list of what to do with roses in summer as, left to their own devices, these rogue stems can sap the plant of energy, for fewer flowers next year. In the worst cases, suckers can weaken the ornamental stems to such an extent that they die, and you’re left with a rampant, plain rose variety you never intended on growing. So do find 10 minutes to pull out rose suckers this weekend, and you’ll be rewarded with prime blooms next year.

This feature is part of the Weekend Win series, and there’s still time to do the other August Weekend Wins:

• Use a $4 dog comb to groom ornamental grasses and save yourself hours weeding in spring.
• Trim lavender so it has time to grow a duvet of dense foliage to survive winter well.