For northern Maryland, looks like this week summer just showed up, so I'm trying out a red Freedom rose from Home Depot (yep, the cheap ones) which seems to be a florist rose, not the yellow Freedom rose bred in England. And will be ripping out two pink double Knockouts which will go to my neighbor, to make room for two Medallion and a Sunset Celebration from Palatine - first order. I know Medallion blows fast but I just love the color and flower size. And I'll try more of this stuff I got from Home Shopping network that is supposed to work miracles - think is is just some sort of foliage feed, but it can't hurt. Here my modest collection of bushes is leafing out like crazy already from the record warmth, and they all need FOOD.
Happy gardening and I solemnly promise (again) to try to be better about spraying.......

Over the last 25 years the same story could be applied to Chicago Peace, Chrysler Imperial, Fragrant Memory, Patsy Cline, Angel Face, White Dawn, Nuits de Young, Marchesa Boccella, Le Reine, Miriam Wilkins. May they rest in peace. At least I kept trying to rejuvenate them until they were stone cold dead.

And I am still doing it with Paradise, Maggie, Magenta, Colette, and Blue Ribbon. I have moved them out of the rose bed up to the veggie garden to give them extra special care. I am not too hopeful.

Is that stuff you got from HSN called Spray N Grow? If it is, I have been using it for over 20 years. It does seem to work. I even tried an experiment with my veggies. I sprayed half my garden with that and none on the other half. The sprayed half did much better. I use it on all my flowers and veggies.

Happy Gardening to you too! And never give up on your roses until they are dead wood.
Clare

Yes, I decided to try HSN's "Spray and Grow" - I only got it last year but figured I would try it on the roses. It's nice to hear it does some good. I especially want to try it on the "weaklings" along with fussing some more with my soil to see if I can discover the "magic bullet". Maybe I will try it on a 3-year old orange tree (from QVC!) that stubbornly refuses to flower although it grows happily enough.

If only I had a nickel for every time that I used to say that - honestly, knowing myself well enough, why did I ever think I would? I am truly a Polly Ana! ;-) (Bear in mind, I'm on the west coast and in mildew central, not to mention the rust belt.)

Then I found this forum and started reading people's adventures with roses that did not need spraying *in their climate*. I was floored with that whole concept. After reading enough to get all the names straight, I dared to go over to the Antique forum regularly and just read the posts about roses that didn't have names four words long ;-) Also, I found out roses don't have to be tall sticks with flowers on top - they could be bushes with flowers all over them - really?!? Finally, I got hooked on found roses and their stories and just started there. Fortunately, Grandmother's Hat grows well here and I started with that one (sadly it will probably black spot for you, not sure). Off I went on OGRs like teas, noisettes and hybrid perpetuals.

My garden has taken a detour since then - I live close enough to EuroDesert roses to have been able to acquire many of Cliff's mother plants so my garden is not as 'old garden' as I thought, but I have a much better variety of types of roses that will do well for me and my (ahem) 'personal limitations' ;-) I've had a (few) Intrigue and love the colors, but lost my last, last fall. Now I have a dozen others in my 'blue plot' that will make me forget it this summer, I'm sure. When climate serves me mildew, now I make lemonade, to mix my metaphore.

You will find your own way, I just thought I'd introduce you to the idea that it's not your fault that your roses have fungus because you don't spray, it's because you haven't found the roses that you don't need to spray for your location and surely that must include ones with names that don't end in 'Knock Out'. Just for fun, you might start a thread to that effect.

I've used Spary N Grow for years and really like it. I use the total package with the cocoa wet and Bill's Perfect fertilizer (fish emulsion) and I do think the roses like it!

I must say I am happy I have never seen rust, it sounds awful. Got plenty of BS, mildew in the fall, and Japanese beetles to contend with. (Often when I am repotting a potted rose I find a bunch of happy beetle grubs - disgusting - which get squished immediately) Thanks to the record warmth here I have already had to spray off a clump of aphids - personally I fear it may be a baking summer in the Mid-Atlantic - oh, well, at least my small collection of orchid cacti will enjoy it.