When I first started growing roses, I was confused about the difference between own-root and grafted roses. I had no idea what root stock was or what the terms own root or grafted meant. There are endless opinions on this subject, but I decided to use the good old trial and error method to determine what worked best for me. I planted a little of everything from everywhere, and what I found was that the own-root roses were slower growing at first but consistently stronger and healthier. They also bounced back when accidentally damaged and could better withstand our super wet climate. I even had one rose that disappeared one day, but I left the roots in the ground and it grew back! While the grafted roses grew faster, we lost quite a few to damaged or rotted grafts. I also found that some of the grafted roses were more prone to disease issues. Even a few that had fantastic reviews for disease resistance were sometimes super difficult in our wet climate. For us, the answer was easy. We now only add own-root roses to our garden!