Question
I live near oklahoma city ok. i have a rose bush that seems very healthy and is producing lots of roses but i have noticed that the new limbs growing are coming in with very thick thorns and the leaves are a different color of green. what is causing this and how can i fix it? it is a beautiful bush producing orange and white roses. i have 2 of these bushes and only having problems with one of them.

Answer
What you are describing is a sucker coming from beneath the budding area. Roses are grafted onto an understock and sometime the understock starts to grow. Because it is a totally different rose ( usually Dr. Huey, a climber) the canes will look different. To remove the sucker type canes, dig down past them and you should see them sprouting from below the bump caused by grafting the rose. If you cut them off, then it is like pruning and they will return so the best way to make sure they never some back is to yank hard downwards and tear them off. The rose will them form a scab and the canes will not come again. Hope this helps.