Q: I have roses of one color growing in a mixed bed and just noticed some long, flexible canes with different colored flowers growing several feet away. What has happened?

A: Most roses are grafted onto a rootstock because this is an easy and efficient way to produce a lot of a particular variety for sale quickly. If branches sprout from the rootstock, the blooms that the suckers produce will be different from the top, grafted portion. Suckers arising from below the graft are easy to see and remove, but sometimes a root will send up a new shoot several feet away from the original shrub. You can dig down and remove this new plant and the root it is growing from.