English Elegance I know roots and grows splendidly here own root. First Kiss I haven't tried. It is entirely possible for one rose to root like a weed, yet its sibling from the same hip may not root worth squat. Raising a batch of sibling seedlings from the same cross, much less same hip, you find some are horses, ready to explode into growth right off the bat. Others germinate, but never grow or give begrudging inches and usually with some sort of heavy fungal infection. Most often, here, it's mildew. I've investigated why some are so rudely healthy while other siblings aren't and the constant has been the root system. Healthy, vigorous seedlings make healthy, extensive, vigorous roots. Sickly, weak seedlings do not. You find many roses which are just terrible own root, though budded they are at least "acceptable". If there aren't vigorous, healthy roots under it, there can't be anything decent above ground.
For easily 75 years, American roses were selected for the novelty and "quality" of the flower, little more. No one cared IF they rooted, nor if they would grow as own root plants because everything was budded. You can easily take a rather marginal rose and make it acceptable by budding it. That's why so many which seemed as good as our memories of them are, perform so badly now as own root plants. Some believe it is due to "over propagation" or improper bud selection and there may be a grain of truth there. But, in my opinion, much more is highly likely due to the plants simply not making decent specimen own root (compared to budded) and more of us now do not spray compared to those who grew these roses thirty, forty or more years ago.
You still see examples of this in more current roses. J&P, toward the end, introduced their "New Generation Roses", own root plants of recent and new introductions. One year, they announced Henry Fonda would be offered as a New Generation the following year. It wasn't. They had to back peddle because Henry Fonda WILL root, but it will NOT perform acceptably own root. Week's tried selling Midnight Blue as a "Shrublet", their own root plants. That didn't last long. Midnight Blue is an excellent plant here, but it is miserable own root and often flat out refuses to root. Ebb Tide is marginal, at best, budded. Own root, it is a train wreck, usually resulting in "one cane wonders" where the budded plants are at least two cane wonders.
Wrapping cuttings CAN help with difficult to root types, but just because something CAN be done, doesn't always mean it SHOULD be.
As I recall, you were supposed to plunge the cutting into a potato and plant the potato in the ground. It might have worked if I hadn't planted the potatoes, I suppose, and had just used the potato as a temporary growing medium, but I ended up with lots of big potato plants growing in the middle of my rose beds. No trace remained of the roses that had been planted in them.
