Question
I have a Tropicana rose I purchased in Pensacola, FL 5 years ago. We are a military family and moved to Meridian, MS a year later. I dug up my rose and brought her along. We had a baby a year later and needed a bigger house so we moved. I dug up my rose and brought her with me...again :) We will be transferring to Coronado, Ca in 7 months. I am wondering if she will make the move okay. I know it's a lot of transplanting for her. She is huge now, probably close to 6 foot and just beautiful. The neighbors are always complementing her. I would also like to maybe split her roots and have two of her but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea either, or even how to go about doing it. My husband thinks I'm nuts but she's always went with us. I can't stand to think of leaving her behind. Thanks for any advice!

Answer
Roses are budded onto what is called an understock. This means the rose is growing on another rose's roots. So if you cut the rose in half you could be activating the understock rose and even if that doesn't happen, the chances of killing Tropicana are very good indeed. You do have time to start another bush by cuttings. Many people do this when a rose bush they want to keep gets too big to move. Alas you are not moving at a good time for a rose as it will be actively growing in the summer and digging it up will probably kill it. The more mature a rose gets, the more likely it is to not survive transplanting. What I would do is plant it into a container that you can move with you. Then when it is moving time, cut the rose way back to about 18 inches as this will put into a temporary state of dormancy. Tropicana is a vigorous rose and this is in it's favour, so that when you plant it in the new location, it will have to vigour to overcome the change in the climatic conditions from the old garden.
How to make a new rose from cuttings
http://scvrs.homestead.com/Cuttings1.html