I think it is an innocuous characteristic of some roses. My Champney's Pink Cluster rose gets the purple blotches & it's probably the healthiest rose I've got. Seems like the canes purple more in cool weather. It's never been sprayed & is probably 20+ yrs old.

And I recall some rose catalog (ARE?) commenting in a plant description that a certain variety routinely got the purple blotches, but not to worry about it.

Ann from Tennessee had a thread a while ago about ethylene being produced over winter by fungal spores residing on the canes causing the purple splotches--- a reason I never feel too badly about having to prune most of my roses to the ground in spring.

Steve

I see this all the time here in the spring. At our Great Lakes District rose conference they discussed the issue and it was said to be black spot that wintered over on the canes. Most people said they cut it off when they pruned but a few said they left it and didn't notice any other issues from those canes. The canes did not die off and the roses didn't suffer any more BS than the others did. I know I have left some occasionally, because if I'd cut it all off I wouldn't have had ANY rose left, but I've never bothered to keep track of how they did afterwards. You might want to experiment by marking the cane and seeing how it performs!

One-year canes are green, old canes are gray and barky, but in between, the canes will change color and may be reddish, brown, or even black. This change may begin with splotches on the green bark.

Small, purplish-red spots could be overwintering blackspot, or several other things, not necessarily harmful. If the plant had a lot of blackspot last fall, I would suspect that.

I have stopped worrying about such things and can recommend that approach :)

Okay - I'll leave them. It's not just one cane - it's all of them. But - the bush seems healthy. So I'll ignore it. If it turns out the rose bush is hideous - then I can always get another variety of HT.

But here's hoping for the best. :)
Carol

Oh, Carol,
Your Perfume Delight was one of my earlier learning experiences. I had two of them. I loved the bloom color, the bloom form and (most of all) the scent.
And that's where the love stopped.
My two Perfume Delights had BLACK SPOT. The BS they had was the worst of any roses I've ever grown. It became a challenge to find a spray to suppress their BS. This challenge became more serious as they shared their BS with roses in the same bed, and the immediately down wind roses suffered.
Nothing worked to keep leaves on Perfume Delights . Nothing.

When I shovel pruned them in their fourth infected year, I felt a giant relief and the rest of the roses in that bed did much better without a source of problem so near by.

Splotches on the canes ....were worst on my Graham Stuart Thomas hedge of roses and on IIRC Patricia Austin. Those roses kept leaves with spraying fungicides.

Perfume Delight was a learning experience.

Ann (of the ethylene comment)

Okay - good thoughts.
I think I might toss it if it gets bad black spot. I don't tolerate that in my roses - and there's no need to spray here - since very few roses get BS.
Hmmmm....I'll keep an eye on this one.
Bummer. - but thanks!
Carol