Question
Hi Lynnette.  I'm sorry that I don't know all of the right terminology.
I know only a little about growing roses, but I have had a lot of success with the several bushes that were on the property we bought 12 years ago, and the ones my wife has added over the years.
Some of the older bushes are sending up branches from below the ground or low on the woody "knot" of old pruned branch stumps. A few years ago one of the yellow roses had a branch grow from below the ground and eventually it produced little red blossoms. My wife says that commercial roses are sometimes a cutting of the desired variety grafted onto a universal host.  My questions: How can I be sure that a particular branch is the "host"; how should I go about eliminating those host branches; and, how can I stop the bushes from producing the host branches? Finally, as I was exploring one of the bushes, I found that it had a couple of shallow roots that were 3 ft and 6 ft long before they disappeared underneath the driveway and the sidewalk -- it that normal? How long do rosebush roots normally get?

Answer
To give modern roses more vigour, they are budded onto what is called an understock. The understock is usually a vigorous climber such as Dr. Huey. Many time when the top rose dies or gets weakened, the understock takes over and what you get are small red flowers as that is a climber called Dr. Huey. To tell if the rose is the understock, you dig down until you can see the top of the roots and what will be above where the roots start is a knob and that is the union where the two were budded. If a cane is growing above the knob it is the top rose but if it is growing from below the knob, it is the understock and should be taken off. To stop the rose producing what is called suckers, you take the sucker and tear it off with your hands or take your foot and stomp on it. Then the rose will form a scab and no more suckers will come from that area. If you cut it off it is the same as pruning the sucker and you will get a lot more canes from it. Dr. Huey can produce very long roots but many times roses will throw out longer canes to look for water or because it is a type of rose that produces suckers like Dr. Huey. The average rose bush grows down to about 24 inches and spreads about 36 inches.