21,401 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Here in Livermore (hot and dry summers with occasional marine influence usually -- but a lot of marine influence for some strange reason this year), I cured the persistent powdery mildew on shrub-form Devoniensis by moving the plant from the east side of my back yard to the west side of my back yard. Like magic, no PM thereafter.
I have also (inadvertently) done the experiment with too little water and instigated PM. The same plants, if well-watered, do not get PM nearly as bad as when they are not watered well.
And, as said before, some roses get terrible PM no matter what you do. They are soon gone from this garden (so, the answer to your question about avoiding is "yes" in my case -- too many great roses that don't get PM to suffer with the blight and effort required with one that does. Every day I see my neighbor's 'Dorothy Perkins' peering over the fence as a reminder of what a dedicated mildew-er can achieve, blight-wise.)
This post was edited by catspa on Fri, Jun 21, 13 at 19:10

No word yet. You know how local government is, hurry up and wait. Meanwhile I have fluorescent tape and spray paint all over my front yard :( My only positive though on the subject is if I do have to dig all those teas up is that I could move MBRC slightly left and back in the bed to allow her to get even larger. If you do plant MBRC, leave plenty of room!

Kim, thanks for the clarification on musk and multiflora. We're also told that multiflora doesn't do well in our climate and having ordered some multiflora rooted roses several years ago, I can attest that every one of them has since died. The Ballerina was inherited about 15 years ago and is own-root. Had to have a cage built for it to keep it from overtaking the rest of that bed and keep it up off the ground. I don't prune it much 'til the new spring growth comes out and then only take out the dead stuff that I can reach. The nuisance rose in my garden is Belle Amore. It was grown from a cutting and is well over 6ft tall and grows wherever it doggone well pleases. Could be in the neighbors yard by now, too.



It's quite possible what they are selling are "maidens". Usually, a newly budded rose (maiden) is simply one shoot. They are traditionally pinched or pruned back to the first bud to encourage them to branch. Each bud has a 'guard bud' on either side of it. The maiden's shoot is the central bud, the usual one which grows when you prune to a bud. Cutting that off stimulates the two guard buds (one on either side) to break into growth, producing the two branches we're most often used to seeing on a new bare root.
If these are maidens, yes, it is possible for them to produce good, heavy plants. As long as the variety is one which is genetically capable of producing that kind of plant; it's grown and pruned properly, it should result in a decent plant. They are probably taking the lazy way out by selling maidens. That way, they don't have to do the initial pinch nor wait for them to produce the usual branched new growth. The real down side is a maiden is often a weaker bud union because it is younger and only one cane, so its base is smaller with a smaller contact area to the root stock. That makes it more easily damaged or even destroyed. But, it SHOULD be a lower price plant than a Grade 1 bare root. Kim

We have never deadheaded our Knock Out rose - more than ten years old now . We do occasionally trim out the spent clusters on our Pink Double KO and our Blushing KO because they are much more visible from the walkway and we try to keep them looking neat. We haven't noticed any difference in the repeat cycle either way
In fact, we don't do much pruning at all with any of them - just maintenance.
I think it's mainly a matter of personal preference. It is nowhere near as critical for them as it is with the HTs, floribundas. climbers, and the like.

We are having a light JB year in comparison to normal so far...growing in number by the day, but nothing like in the past few years when they destroyed any and all. Of my eighty roses, so far they haven't touched Fragrant Cloud (orange/red), Firefighter (red), Love's Promise (red) and Big Momma (medium pink)...all blooming now and all very fragrant. I've only had a couple on White Licorice (pale yellow, very fragrant and full of blooms). Fragrant pinks, yellows and whites do seem to be their favorites, but there are exceptions to color/fragrance being a deterrent...I have some reds and some non fragrant roses that are heavily infested right now. Some of my roses are between flushes...full of buds, but not open yet. I'll let you know if any of those seem to be JB resistant once they open.

JBs will track fragrance into your yard, and then be guided visually toward white, yellow, and blush roses, so there is not a tight correlation between fragrance of particular roses and JB appeal. But a garden with a lot of fragrant roses will attract extra JBs. One control measure is simply to disbud the roses, especially the fragrant or light-colored ones, during peak JB. Cut all the open or opening roses and bring inside or give them away.
Notice the throats of JB traps are colored yellow.
This post was edited by michaelg on Fri, Jun 21, 13 at 14:02

Well, the second round of buds are coming on my Peace and JFK roses. I am now thinking that I had a senior moment in remember which bush I placed where.
I'm starting to agree that my picture posted in this thread is actually the Peace Rose, as the new blooms on the other rose look more like JFK this time around.
I am so annoyed with myself.
Scott in PA

Navy Lady is very dark and very hardy.
Here is a link that might be useful: Navy Lady on HMF

This past Sunday, Bayses Purple looked fantastic at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in deep shade. It was covered with flowers. The previous times I saw it I thought it was pretty sparsely flowered, but now it has reached a mature old age and is doing its thing, I guess.
Here is a link that might be useful: Bayses Purple in a German catalog

I planted it a few month ago, and it has not budded yet. I did get to see a few specimans at the Rockfeller Rose Garden in the Bronx in full bloom: they look great. However, because of the name, I have high expectation for this rose. But what I saw is a tad ordinary. I am sure they are great roses, but I serectly was hoping for something with a little more that extra something because of the name....

Roses from nurseries in places where BS is prevalent will all end up with BS because they don't spray. By the time you see it it will be too late but you can stop it in its' tracks by spraying. Buy the best bud union with the most and strongest looking canes and assume there is BS and begin spraying immediately.

Even where and when BS isn't an issue, it often will be in a nursery setting. No matter how good the cultural practices are, the plants are going to be stressed, impairing their immune systems. Crowding together in nursery rows fosters the perfect conditions for stressed plants to fall victim to the issues. Only in the absolute best of conditions can diseases be reduced without chemical intervention and those are rare, indeed. In Visalia, at Sequoia Nursery, black spot was seldom an issue anywhere in the nursery, except for the sales area where the plants were immature, stressed in too-small pots and crowded together either in green houses or out under shade cloth, all of which tremendously raising the humidity. Even when sprayed regularly, enclosing the plants inside boxes which raised the humidity even more, created the perfect Petri dishes for the fungi to germinate and proliferate.
If the diseases are that great an issue where you are, you may have to resort to spraying. Fortunately, where I am, they aren't. I have often been able to reduce, even eliminate the problems by defoliating new plants I bring into the garden and placing them in filtered light until they push new foliage. Not a 'cure all' but it has definitely worked quite well for many years and without anything smelly, expensive, potentially dangerous and toxic nor requiring the effort of actually DOING the spraying. Kim







There is no such thing as "an enclosed back yard" when it comes to deer. They laugh at 6 ft fences and higher.
If you can see no tell-tale signs lower down on the bush - broken stems from being bent, etc. and the flowers are up high, but cleanly be-headed - it's deer, period.
They will also go after new shoots at the tops of stems - but leave the woody parts and mature leaves.
I should've added - classic deer signs are when you are looking straight at a mature bush and nothing whatsoever appears to be wrong. Then upon closer inspection, you notice that all the buds the bush had the day before are suddenly gone with neatly trimmed stem tips remaining, instead. ;-)