How to Move or Graft a 32 Year Old Rosebush

Linda from Canton asks, ‘how do you safely split off a section of a 32 year old rosebush when moving it?’

Don’t move your 32 year old rosebush. They don’t divide like a perennial, so I think that’s something we need to talk about. Roses are an actual shrub. They don’t generally divide well.

I think if you’re gonna try to start a new piece of something, you would have to basically graft it, which you would take a cutting of it and kind of use a sharp knife, and expose some of the bare at the end there, and then dip it in a rooting hormone and would have to put it into soil that way. So, that would be the best way to start something new.

If you have enough of the root system, you have to remember after 32 years, that root system spread probably six feet wide, four feet wide at least, and when you go to dig it up, are you gonna be able to dig up a four foot root system and move it?

If you’re gonna attempt it, your highest likelihood of success is to transplant that plant in the early spring before the foliage comes out. That’s super important. Once the foliage is out, your transplant success rate is gonna drop drastically.

So, you do want to try to move it now if you do. You want to get as much of the root system as possible as far as moving it, and a lot of times what we’ll do there is we’ll dig say a three foot ring around the plant and we’ll dig down a foot. Rose roots aren’t gonna be as deep as like an oak tree or maple tree, and you dig down a foot or 18 inches, and then kind of start to cut underneath the plant and once you get enough of the roots cut on the one side, you can tip the plant over.

We’ll put a tarp or a piece of burlap underneath there, lay the plant back upright and then trim the roots on the other side and then pull the tarp through and then people can get on the four corners of the tarp, lift it up and you’re taking way more roots that way than you were if you were to try to dig it and just put it in a wheelbarrow and move it one person. When you’re talking about a plant that old, transplant success is going to be lower than moving a plant that’s been in the ground five or ten years. I mean 32 years is a long time.

And trim it back really well and fertilize it. You can use a comeback formula or some biotone, some with mycorrhizae to help redevelop the root system because when you damage the roots, you want the, it’s like a teeter-totter, you want the roots and the top to be balanced. If you cut a lot of the roots off, you need to prune the top back because the plant cannot support that much weight or that much top having the root system being reduced.

Linda, just keep it where it is. I’m not saying it’s not possible to move that rose. It is, there’s more involved in it than what some people would think. And also too, just a lot of times with grafting things too, depending on what the variety is, you may not get what that rose was. It may revert back to like an original species or something because sometimes they hybridize them and they come up with different ones. It’s probably an older variety of one, so.

And anytime you’re taking a cutting off, you’ll see on most roses there’s a graft mark, and the root system and the top of the plant aren’t always the same rose. It’s actually two different plants. You have the strongest root system with the color or or style top that they want on it.

Make sure wherever the growth comes from that you’re going to take the cutting on and try to replicate that rose. It comes from above the graft mark. Anything coming below the graft mark is going to be the root system of the plant, not the top of the plant that you’re used to seeing.

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