21,400 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Personal experience: the massive amount of annual rust on large patches of a perniciously persistent Potentilla ground-cover has so far never translated to the roses growing near it here: Darlow's Enigma, Grandmother's Hat, Jacques Cartier, Secret Garden Musk Climber, etc. Same for hollyhock rust.

This just reiterates what I mentioned on the post about James Galway. Roses like lots of water. I'm not discounting the alfalfa tea but even that wouldn't have this sort of effect in my drought-stricken garden. All the watering I do doesn't seem to penetrate very far into the hard-baked soil underneath. It's almost enough to make me want to give up growing roses, with water becoming such a scarce and expensive commodity here.
Ingrid

Yeah, I know about the knockouts being disease resistant, one of the main reasons they are super popular here. I'm even starting to come around to liking them. However, it's very humid here in NW Florida and its definitely stretched that resistance. She still has BS on them, just not as bad as some others around town and definitely nothing like my twigs. That's why I said I can't really know for sure if the Garden Safe works or if its just the resistance in the plants LOL.
:)
My twigs have until cooler weather to start behaving or they're gone. Plus, some of the problem was due to the grass in the yard getting out of hand and my entire house coming down with the plague and unable to weed or cut it. There was very little air circulation for my plants. Out of 40 roses, only 5 have been problem children so I am quite satisfied with the ones I picked. I'm more of a buy what you like person as I don't mind spending extra time on things I love. Spraying doesn't bother me as it gives me time to enjoy all the money I've shelled out this year.

Bayer Disease Control for Roses. . . etc. is probably the most effective product and will give you good control of blackspot if sprayed every two weeks. This is what I am using. Try Lowe's or online. The only "organic" fungicides that are likely to help much under severe conditions are copper products such as copper soap (Soap Shield). Copper should be handled with the same caution as synthetic fungicides. Also it can burn foliage. It is best sprayed at a time it will dry quickly, not at dusk or in the fog. I have used sulfur fungicide with some success, but only if I started at leaf-out and never missed a weekly spray--or more often during rainy spells.



Ah, Champlain I know, and I hope this one is as tough! The colors are like Champlain, but the petals aren't as tidy when the buds open. They're sort of wavy, if that makes any sense. I need to find some time to rifle through my rose book and see if I can find something to help me describe it.
Thanks though! At least it's a fun mystery.

When I used to run experiments on rose germination methods, I often used Miniature Rose 'Angel Rose', Rosa chinensis seeds. The resulting seedlings were then sold as a fundraiser at our local rose society spring sale. I do not remember anyone complaining about their plant. The seedlings spend several years as miniatures and then often grew into small climbers. See the link below for a discussion.
Here is a link that might be useful: Miniature Rose 'Angel Rose', Rosa chinensis seeds.

From reports about it from other pollen pimps, if it hasn't flowered in three years, I would suspect it probably isn't Wild Rover. It does create at least a 'semi climber', but it supposedly flowers easily. I've avoided it because of reported black spot issues. Kim

It's certainly the deadliest thing to ever hit MY roses. When we moved to the country, all I had time and evergy for were Knockouts, but there were five HTs here when we bought the place. I put in two dozen bushes five years ago. In the last year, I've removed six, and now I have two more that have to go. The HTs got it as badly as the Knockouts. No prevention, no cure, very sad.
I unwittingly spread it with my pruning shears when I was cutting back a bush that looked "funny" in late winter 2011. I neglected to sterilize the pruner between bushes and thank heaven, I only had time to do five more before a warm spring leafed out all the others and I decided not to finish them.

My rule of thumb is to prune weak roses as little as possible. The only source of energy for growth is leaves in sunlight, so fewer leaves = less growth.
But happy established roses can be pruned anytime from late winter to midsummer because they have ample stored energy to support regrowth.
This post was edited by michaelg on Mon, Jul 22, 13 at 9:39

Hi all,
A little mid-summer first season update. The roses I got after starting this thread - Eglantyne, Sharifa Asma, and The Alnwick Rose - are all planted, blooming and happy, but the garden isn't exactly photo-ready, partially because it continues to evolve. I've added three pink orphans whose names I don't know, as well as Winchester Cathedral, which practically jumped into my arms yesterday along with Graham Thomas (who now lives along the fence, not with the pink/white roses).
Part of the reason the garden isn't photo-ready is that the Japanese beetles and rabbits insist on participating in the gardening. The wretched beetles have helped me get over the reluctance to cut any flowers my mother instilled from birth, so I've had roses in the house. Oh darn! Here's a little picture, of Sharifa Asma, Alnwick and an orphan. I'll work out a better beetle plan at some point, but at least the leaves are all perfect, so hopefully the roses are getting established even if not covered in flowers. My dog did some rabbit control over the weekend, so maybe they'll take the hint. If not, at least they won't move in.
Thanks again for all of the coaching!



I'm not a cutsie sign addict either, Kippy. But I did like the three my middle sister got for our youngest sister (with the two little boys)...
Raising children is like getting pecked to death by a duck.
We believe in giving home-made gifts...which one of the children would you like?
and... Martha Stewart does NOT live here and it's a GOOD thing! Kim





Well, while I will obviously defer to the experts in roses, I must jump in and say that this is a slightly simplified explanation and there are other factors to be considered, at least regarding woody growth generally. Although I am a dimwit regarding rose pruning (I admit, I only do it if a plant is falling over), I do know that loosely speaking , growth always follows the knife.....so while a prune, especially a hard prune, will keep a plant fairly compact, this is a short lived effect and the plant will almost certainly react by pushing out insanely vigorous (but functionally impaired) growth - ie.blind shoots, water stems and so on. I do a lot of tree pruning and it always feel utterly counter-intuitive that when attempting to rebalance a tree which has grown lopsided, it is necessary to actually cut even more from the diminished side. leaving it looking really iffy. Of course, there are many considerations such as innate vigour (genetics), climate conditions, timing of reduction and so on......but I have observed roses really ramp into growth after a sharp cutback - but not producing flowering canes.
That is true, Campanula, pruning usually always stimulates new growth. That is why dead heading deep or summer pruning helps to keep them in shape. If you just snip off to that first 5 leaf set that plant is going to start to grow and soon will be larger than life. By cutting deeper you can maintain a more manageable size. I hate it when I have to use a step ladder to see my blooms!