Why not take the cane down to the ground?

I think we might have done that last fall. If so, it didn't work, obviously. But I'll check with her and make sure that was the one we pruned to the ground last season.

I might add that on three different roses with RRD in my gardens, I took the canes in question down to the ground--and the RRD distorted growth returned in all three cases, so I'm not a big advocate of that strategy.

Kate

It looks like RRD to me, especially the top picture.

In my experience, taking one cane down, even promptly, is a long shot, maybe 10%.

I think RU exposure from last fall would have returned with the first growth in spring rather than now. But I have seen lapses of a few months before RRD symptoms returned.

Michael, I kinda suspect there were some symptoms earlier this spring and that she just pruned them off. The only reason I particularly noticed this rose now is because I agreed to water her garden while she was on vacation the past week--so I got a much closer view of her plants then I normally do. The suspicious growth is on the "other side" of the rose from you would stand and look at it and the suspicious area is shorter than any other areas on the plant--to me, it looks like she has been giving that area a light pruning to supposedly get rid of the odd growth. I'm not sure I even noticed the odd growth on the other side of the rose the first day or two I was watering for her. Then I glimpsed it out of the corner of my eye and waded into the interior of that garden (she likes to pack as many plants into a given space as possible) to view the rose from the opposite direction--and then the odd growth was quite obvious. I don't want to make any accusations--just want to get the rose out of her garden if that really is RRD. Don't want that durned mite floating over on a breeze into my garden! : (

Kate

If RRD had gotten into the roots, the growth this spring would have been ugly, maybe not so much for the leaves (this applies to KOs that I've been watching), but blatently out on the canes.

Something is terribly wrong with the bloom sprays: they aren't there the way that KOs are so dependably.

When the sepals are overgrown, when the buds are tightly clustered, when the blooms don't drop their petals cleanly, that's three symptoms right there.

One patch of KOs I've been watching (3rd year now with RRD) still had a few canes that looked normal. Some canes were appearing heckish chlorotic. Others had color that was interesting.....but it was in the leaves, not in blooms.

Now the patch has been pruned down to ten inches with hedge trimmers. (They did it within the past five days).

It will be interesting to see which canes grow back and when and what blooms may look like.

Kate, I think your instincts are good and strong and you did well to catch these when you did.

Henry posted a research finding that infected roses can be asymptomatic at least for a time. I think I have observed a remission that was not a cure. This spring, a rose produced a bad basal shoot from the center of the plant. I assume it was infected while it was in the process of growing out. I removed the sick cane, but another bad shoot grew from the same place. I dug the plant and carved a piece off the edge that included a cane stub and a fleshy root. Replanted, that piece grew out looking normal for 2+ months and was about to bloom, when suddenly bad growth appeared in two places. I can't rule out independent reinfection, but it looks like the virus was quiescent during 9-10 weeks of active growth. Maybe there was only a tiny bit in the crown fragment that I transplanted.

Despite the failure, I do think this approach to rescue is more likely to work than just cutting down a cane. But the plant needs to have a crown with some width to it, not a taproot such as some own-roots produce.

And here comes a big negative on waiting. I'm pulling out a hedge of about 30 KOs a section at a time and replacing them with hollies. I KNEW BETTER than to create a monoculture like that, but i inherited more than half of them with the house, polka-dotted around the yard. I added to them to finish out the hedge when i lined up the ones we transplanted. Here's what i know for certain:
1. KOs are the most susceptible roses, but they do infect close neighbors.
2. If you think it's infected, it almost certainly IS. Several that i pulled out just to be cautious had unmistakable horrid growth concealed at the bottom.
3. Since the bigboxes are still selling KOs by the truckload, your neighbors will be stunned and horrified when they stop to ask you why

...why you are "digging up those nice roses". And then they scoot home to examine theirs.
Sorry for the fragmented message. I do all my internetting on my smartypants phone, and at a certain point the forum just stops cooperating, i dunno why.