Why has my double rose started single flowering?

Question

I have a climbing rose that started life as a double, but after a couple of years started flowering as singles (in the same colour). What's the deal? And is there a way to get the doubling back?

Answer 1

You are not alone in failing to make a note of the varietal name of plants you put in! I asked because, if its a recently created rose, a newer variety, these sometimes don't hold the features they were sold as having, often reverting to a single form, or even a different shade of flower colour (peach to pink for instance).

The other possibility is that the variety you bought has died back because maybe the graft failed, and what you're getting now are stems growing off the rootstock, and when they flower, they are fairly plain, single, pink (usually) flowers, sometimes called 'dog rose'. Or you may be seeing flowers from suckers off the rootstock because that's taken over - when sucker growth occurs, it's important to remove it because it will take over and grow vigorously. You can tell if it's sucker growth - the stems always arise from below the nobbly bit at the base of the plant, often from below soil level - the nobbly bit is the graft, so anything growing from above that is the variety of rose you bought, anything below isn't.

You can add a photo if you're not sure, but either way, if the grafted part has died, you will not get double flowers again.