Roses are just beginning to flower again, but if you want a beautiful garden display, it is essential to start looking for any unusual shoots growing from the base of the plant. In May roses can produce suckers, which are unwanted shoots that are easy to miss but drain energy from roses to stunt their growth and lead to no flowers on the bush. 

Rachel, a gardener and founder of the Rachel the Gardener website, has explained that suckers appear because most garden roses are made of two plants that have been grafted together. The top half of a rose is chosen for its beautiful flowers, while the hardy rootstock at the bottom gives the plant more strength, but suckers will grow from the rootstock and overwhelm the flowering part if they are not removed.

Rachel said, “Many modern roses are grafted, i.e., they are two plants joined together. The top part is the ‘beautiful’ plant, bearing the flowers: the lower part is the ‘rootstock’, which is usually something tough and sturdy, such as Rosa canina (Dog Rose).

“It's really important to remove suckers which sprout from below the graft because they won't be ‘beautiful’ roses, they will be rootstock roses, i.e. common old Dog Rose. Which will speedily outgrow the ‘beautiful" rose!"

Suckers usually grow from the graft union, which is the swollen area around the bottom of the plant but can also shoot up directly from the soil near roses as well. 

They will often be pale green, tend to grow quickly and be thornier or of a different shape than the shoots growing on your roses.

One simple way to tell if it’s a rose sucker is they tend to have more leaflets than other branches of your rose bush. 

May is the most important month to look out for rose suckers are they look very similar to the stems on a rose bush and if left alone, will become more established which can make them harder to remove. 

If rose suckers are caught in May, they will they will not be able to steal much energy from the plant so your roses will stay flowering and healthy throughout summer. 

How to remove rose suckers 

The most important thing to know about getting rid of suckers is that you cannot simply cut them off as you will leave the bud behind, making it likely to grow back.

Instead, teat the sucker at the base of the plant as it will damage the bud and make it much more difficult to regrow. 

However, if the sucker is woody and difficult to just snap off then, you can carefully remove the soil around your rose plant and trace the sucker to the base of the root. Then, use sharp and clean pruners to cut the sucker. 

Make sure to keep an eye out for pesky suckers as they often regrow, especially in late spring or early summer due to the longer sunnier days and warm soil being the ideal conditions for buds to form on the rootstock.