The hybrid wichuriana “Dr. Huey” is the most commonly-used rootstock for propagation of roses by bud grafting. When gardeners are careless about removing suckers, the understock will take over. The result is a brilliant but brief display of bright red blossoms at the beginning of the rose season. This example was blooming in a Wichita garden in mid-May, but you can find them everywhere grafted roses are grown.
I got out to the botanical garden last night for the first time in about two weeks.
There is more at my Flickr page.
You seem to like roses.
Here in Portland we have a yearly “Rose Festival”. It’s a big deal, with parades, and a Rose Queen picked via a series of beauty contests from the city’s high schools. A bunch of warships, most US but some Canadian, visit and dock on the river. And there’s a contest for growers of roses.
The winning rose each year is transplanted into the Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. It’s kind of a living museum of winners going back to the beginning of the Rose Festival. It’s amazing to see when it’s in bloom.
It’s also interesting to see how fashion in roses changes over the years. There was a period in which dwarf flowers were all the rage, for instance.
I’m quite fond of roses. I used to have a little garden where I grew some of the very old varieties — gallicas, eglantine, damasks, moss, etc. They might not bloom all summer long as do modern hybrids, but they have distinctive charms.