So, on Friday I visited my local nursery during their annual sale, and while shopping through the shrubs and bushes, I found a little area with what appears to be unsold plants from previous seasons, and amongst them a few unlabeled David Austin roses. These appear as they have been sitting outside for quite some time, I am assuming that they have somehow survived outside since last year due to the weathering of the containers and labels. Since a large portion of the growth on the plants seem to be pretty new, I'm assuming the constantly rainy weather we have had the last few weeks has caused a surge in the growth on all of them. I found one that had a fairly decent amount of growth, with about 10 buds on it, a few of them showing yellow petals, it had a moderate amount blackspot on the older leaves, but none of the new ones. I thought nursing this yellow mystery rose back to health and finding out what it was might be a fun project so I asked about it. The associates working didn't know much about it, but I ended up buying it for $15, not bad considering it is fairly large (it is in a 3.7Gal container). I also figured any rose that has 10 buds on it after being so neglected should be a pretty reliable bloomer.

So, I got it home, I removed quite a few of the leaves with blackspot in an effort to prevent it from spreading to the new leaves. It sat on my porch, separated from my other roses for a few days, have I watered it and once gave it some extremely diluted liquid composted manure just to give it some sort of nourishment, since the soil it was in must have been very depleted of nutrients. Yesterday as I was looking for new growth on it when I noticed that about half of the previously healthy new foliage was covered in tiny reddish spots. This does not look like blackspot, and it does not look like photos of rust that I have seen, so I have no idea what to do but to try to baby it as much as possible. I had planned on transplanting it today so I just continued with that plan, and now it is in a larger pot with much better soil that is very well amended. Here of some photos of it from before and after finding the mysterious dark reddish spots. It has had one flower open completely so far and it reminded me a lot of my only other yellow Austin, Golden Celebration, which I have two of so I could compare them side by side. They look very very similar, but three small things stand out to me as different, one- the fragrance isn't quite the same as my GC, but I figured that could be due to poor living conditions. Second, the unopened buds of this new rose are a more lemon-yellow, and seem to be slightly more ruffled around the edges, where as the unopened buds of GC are more golden yellow with streaks of orange & the buds stay smooth and unruffled until the flower opens. The third is a small detail, but it seems like it would be consistent among roses of the same species, on this new rose- in between the flower bud and the first two tiny leaves (I believe this area is called the peduncle) is covered with tiny hair-like thorns, which I have seen on other types of roses or plants, but not on the two GC roses I have, so I am not sure how much significance that holds, but I was hoping that someone here may know more about traits such as this or if you could guess what this rose might be, or help me figure out what the spots are. Any input would be appreciated!

Here is a close up of the peduncle area and the tiny thorns, also some unopened buds.

The tiny red spots, I have never seen any type of spots affect the stem area of a leaf before.

the bush is kind of an awkward shape right now but I think after a little growth and some pruning it will be much more attractively shaped

the one full bloom so far:

Hopefully it will be happier in this new pot.

Thanks for taking the time to look!

Jessica.

It will be interesting, when the plant has several years of maturity, to see what you have there. Kind of a fun mystery.

Kate

This year is so messed up weather/temperature/rainfall wise, that we need to keep options open as to what diseases we are seeing.