Can rose suckers grow halfway up the plant?

I have a dead tree in a corner of the garden and have planted a climbing rose at the base to hopefully make a more decorative feature of it.

The rose has only been in for less than a year, so this spring/summer was its first - and it was a cold spring and then a very hot and dry summer so far, so I was prepared for the rose not to do much - just gave it feed and water and hoped it would survive.

But it has produced some strange new growth. Long stems have shot out from one of the existing stems that I had tied in horizontally to try and encourage just that. However, the stems are pale and have strange, stunted-looking leaves. They come from the point where another "normal" leaf stem is already growing. They don't look right. I thought suckers would only appear from the base of the plant, below the graft - but these look like suckers! Or are they stunted because of the weather? Or could the rose dislike being planted by the rotting tree?

Do you think I should cut them off, or just leave them?


Thanks for any advice - I'll try and upload some photos of the normal leaves, the strange ones and the point at which they shoot from the normal stem.

 

I wouldn't class them as suckers, but I cant really see what you mean about different growth.
New leaves will look slightly different to old ones until they harden.

 

I agree with Pete. They are just normal shoots that need to finish growing. I sometimes find that the young growths are red and then turn green over a few weeks; the leaves will also reach full size.

 

ok, thanks both of you for your reassurance - we have loads of other roses, and none have ever had these little stubby leaves but I'll give them a few more weeks to start looking normal :-)

 

Thanks all

 

On second thoughts the only time you could get suckers half way up the stem is if it was a trained standard.
I dont think yours is, is it?

 

No, @pete, it is just a climbing rose. I think a standard would be one with a “trunk” and the bush at the top, like a lollipop? Thanks for the second thought

 

Climbing roses usually flower twice a year once on old growth then on this years growth keep training the new shoots to where you want them, mid to late winter is a good time to prune.

 

thanks for the advice @martin-f. Nice fox :-)

 

Hi Pete, I hope you are still around to offer some advice as I see this post is almost 3 years old. This is the only reference I can find on the Internet regarding suckers on the stem of a trained standard which is what i suspect i have.
I previously thought my standard Rose was grafted just above root level, this is how it looks and I've had a couple of suckers from the rootball last year. However I've seen a video where the desired rose type is grafted into the top of the stem so I'm now not sure if this is the type i have.

Recently a shoot has developed from the eighth node and is growing very vigorously. It does not look the same as the top rose bush. It is totally green where the new growth is reddish. I'll try and upload photos to demonstrate. Could this be a sucker at that height?

 

As far as I know standard roses are always grafted onto the top of the stem, the stem being a strong upright growing rootstock.
Anything coming out of the main stem below the head is going to be the rootstock and not the variety.

 

Just had another look at the pictures and there does appear to be a graft at ground level.
Just wondering if it could possibly be double grafted.

 

Hi,
Many thanks for your prompt reply! That's really useful to know. Now that I look at the top of the stem I can see the grafts are quite obvious now that i know what I'm looking for. This is in addition to the graft at the bottom so you are correct, it is double grafted.
Many thanks for sharing your knowledge, sucker now removed and node sealed.

 

Well I think I have learnt something as well, I didn't actually know they double graft roses.

I have come across it in apple trees.