22,153 Garden Web Discussions | Roses
Ants don't "eat" rose petals. As Michael said, something else chewed up the petals, releasing sap which is sugary. The ants eat that sugar, just as they eat the honey dew from aphids and other sucking insects. Figure out what chewed up the bloom, deal with it and you should prevent the ants from being attracted to the blooms.
I always had that issue with the green roses (Greensleeves, Mint Julep, Sheila MacQueen, etc.) as the petals were heaven for aphids. They would provide their honey dew after sucking out the sap from the petals and the flowers would be full of ants. I dealt with the aphids and the flowers were ant free. Kim
I better try to get a better photo. I keep on thinking thrips. I used to have absolutely TONS of aphids on my roses,but the blooms seemed fine. Then,these nasty Oxythyrea funesta beetles invaded. In hopes to get rid of them, I started spraying a systemic insecticide,Confidor.It did nothing to stop the beetles(if anything, made them stronger!) but got rid of the aphids completely. Now, I have all these crummy looking blooms on some of my light coloured roses. I've completely stopped spraying insecticide; I've gotten the impression that my roses began to look worse once I started spraying. But I could see using a systemic via irrigation on specific plants,if it would be effective against the specific scoundrel that's doing the damage.
I will try for a better photo,but it may have to wait for next year at this point; my rose season is basically over. regards and thanks, bart
My Goodness!
I am a newbie to rose growing, but my gosh some of those striped roses had me stopping in my tracks. Stranger, Simsalabim, Rembrandt Van Ryn, Rusty, and Red Intuition are amongst the loveliest stripes roses I've ever seen. Where on Earth did you find those? I've acquainted myself with many varieties through Rose Encyclopediae, but I can't recall anything quite like those.
That Isolde Hit is gorgeous as well.
Cheers,
Jay
Jay, as I mentioned above, SIMSALABIM and STRANGER are pretty much not available unless you can root a stem from the florist. REMBRANDT VAN RYN is from Hortico in Canada. RED INTUITION you can get either from Wisconsin Roses, or Palatine Roses (Canada). RUSTY may be available from Regan's. It comes from Certified Roses in Tyler Texas, so you might even find it at WalMart or Lowe's in bareroot season. Oops, I just checked Regan's and they do not list it for the 2014 season. Yikes, I also just looked at Certified Roses wholesale website, and they no longer list RUSTY! Bummer. It's a gorgeous rose.
Try growing fruit to really test your patience regarding pests and diseases. Roses are a walk in the park compared to my trials and tribulations with Big Bud mite, aphid blister, peach leaf curl, raspberry cane blight, leaf curling aphids on plums, redcore in strawbs, pear midge, scab, reversion, American gooseberry mildew, silverleaf...........the list goes on and always, there is at least one complete disaster (usually a couple) and several deathrisk moments during a season of fruit growing. Not to mention the endless netting to deter thieving and destructive urban bird life (feral flying rats, aka pigeons).
But we must have jams. jellies. cordials........
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!
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.
I don't disagree with what Seil says. I fertilize until Oct. 1, so that fertilizer is available until local roses wind down sometime in November.
If you fertilize with slow organic sources of nitrogen, you have little control over the amount of nitrogen in the soil moisture at a particular time. However, some N will continue to be released in the fall from spring and summer fertilizing. The rate of release will slow down as the temperature drops, which is fine because the plants will be using less nutrients anyway. I wouldn't apply slow organic fertilizer in the fall unless I expected roses to continue to grow through most of the winter.
I was getting ready to post and then saw Seil's and it is EXACTLY what I would have written.