Canker?

I've had some roses mysteriously die back over a few weeks time for no particular reason. They started out healthy and promising--then suddenly started dying. Very puzzling--maybe canker, although at the end of winter I recognize canker (and get rid of it) so you would think that mid-summer I could also recognize canker--but like you said, you cut this back several times, and the black stuff just returned each time.

I'll be interested in hearing other explanations also.

Kate

It could have been any of a number of things that killed your bush.

Newly planted shrubs that have not yet become established - not only roses - HAVE been killed by being severely cut back (say by an errant mower or weed whacker). I assume the same thing could happen from animal destruction..

But the blackening of the new foliage that you mentioned leads me to believe something else happened.

Maybe you could expand a bit on that description - perhaps describe what the canes/stems looked like.

This post was edited by nickl on Tue, Aug 13, 13 at 11:07

I took it that the stems/canes also all turned black?

They weren't actually cut back by the goats, just had all the leaves and the tender tips nibbled off. They didn't break any stems or jerk it out of the ground at all, just ate the leaves. I'll try to get a pic of it this evening but there's not much to see - it's just black. The entire bush is black, like it had been burned somehow. But the canes aren't shriveled in any way....and it happened so fast! I was out there Saturday evening and snipped off the black tips - Monday night the whole plant was black. And this was a one-gallon bush, not a band.

Browsing by goats wouldn't cause that effect. This is puzzling. It sounds like the rose might have been poisoned by something being dumped on it. There is a bacterial blight of rose similar to fireblight that causes black tips and dieback, but I doubt it would kill the whole plant in three days.