If you could post some pictures someone might be able to have some helpful ideas.

Jackie

Without picures, I'm just making a guess, but some of the symptoms you describe are common when roses are over-fed and/or over-watered. Stick your finger down in the soil under the rose--like 4 inches down. How moist is it? If it is very moist down there, then possibly you are over-watering them. Let the bed dry out and then water in limited amounts and only occasionally. If you have over-fed them, let's hope that the over-watering has flushed the excessive food out. Just don't feed them again for a long time.

Hopefully, with less care and attention, the roses will begin to recover and maybe in about a month start putting out some new healthy growth (warning: it may be reddish--that is normal). If its root system has been damaged from too much water, it may take a year or two for the rose to recover enough to produce roses the way it is supposed to.

Do you have the roses planted where they get at least 6 hours of sun a day? Roses are sun-lovers, you know.

Good luck. You may need a lot of patience to see your roses through to recovery.

Kate

I think Kate is onto something. Unless the plants around the roses have the same watering and feeding needs as the roses, you may be over-watering and feeding your roses.

Yellow leaves, and leaf drop are often caused by over-watering, but once that changes, the roses usually come back quite quickly.

In my climate, we have been known to have heavy rains every day all through spring and then it suddenly turns hot and dry. I often see leaf drop when we have a spring like that.

Since these plants have had a hard time for a couple of years, you may want to dig them up and grow them in a container, if it is practical, where you have more control over both the watering and feeding of the roses until they recover their health.

Smiles,
Lyn