Help please

I don't know if it's just me, my area, or what but I'm having serious problems with my new rose garden. I have them
in full sun on the South side of the house. I am getting every critter or disease I know of. I've had aphids, black spot, long little white things (white fly?) and now powdery mildew. I check them every day and I wash aphids off,
squeeze them with my fingers, use Rose Defense, etc. etc. Is anyone else having these constant problems or are they typical with roses? As much as I love roses I'm starting to wonder if they are worth it.

From my limited experience (have had roses for just under 4 years now), that seems normal depending on the variety.

I have three climbers, three tea roses, and two miniatures. My climbers are Southeast exposure; tea roses are all Southern exposure; miniatures are Northern exposure.

Two of my tea roses and both miniatures are particularly attractive to aphids. I am continuously washing them off with soapy water and checking surrounding plants that may act as transfer stations. Also am always inviting more ladybugs into the garden!

One of my tea roses is particularly susceptible to black spot and powdery mildew.

Always a battle! (But the smell and loveliness of blooms is worth it, IMHO.)


You might want to research your varieties to see if they were bred to withstand the Northwest wetness; there are some varieties that do better in the Pacific Northwest (e.g., a few are listed at http://www.rosemagazine.com/pages/davidaustin.asp).

Best wishes,
-Tiffany

I'm new to the area too but I only planted English Roses and a couple of shrub roses last year. All are supposed to be resistant to diseases. So far, they've only had aphids that I washed off. I've purposely stayed away from the fancy roses. What types do you have?

Tiffanya and KatyMac, Thanks for you quick replies. I guess I wasn't particularly
careful about what kind of roses I got. I just picked what I liked and trusted Molbaks and Wights. I know that Wight's won't carry them if they are not hardy
to the area. I must admit as I think back, I picked up a couple at Fred Meyer.
I just bought a house on a half acre and last summer had the whole thing landscaped. Then I started adding plants. I'm having a ball so far. Son-in-law built me a raised veggie garden and am having my first experience with that.
Butttttt, my roses are driving me crazy. The black spot seems to be mostly gone
as I've carefully picked off every leave that had one and disposed of them.
I will carry on and hope for the best. Thanks Tiff for the hyper-link. I should have been more careful what I bought. I just didn't think it would be this difficult.
A couple of the ones I have are Nancy Reagan, (o k I just went outside to take a look) Queen Elizabeth, Berries and Cream (doing better than the rest except for Aloha) Daybreaker, Sally Holmes, Let Freedom Ring, Tournament of Roses,
Love, Purple Heart, Glowing Peace, Cl. Zepherine, Cabana, Chihuly, The Pilgrim, and Top Notch. I'm hoping when it stops raining for awhile it will help. The couple of weeks of good weather we had I was down in California.

What do you do about powdery mildew? That's my latest problem with only one of the roses so far.

Thanks for all of your help. :) Donna

I haven't had powdery mildew here but when I had it in Calif, I sprayed for it and that worked.

I have to say I've been pretty lucky not to have too many problems with bugs on roses. I have had aphids once. It was kind of exciting as I'd heard of them for such a long time! LOL Get some ladybugs.

Do you spray with messenger? I would recommend that as well as making an alfalfa tea and using that. Also, post over in the rose forum as a lot of people there have experience with these things.

Gwen

Wow, Donna, you have a serious rose garden!
The amount of rain we've been having lately certainly isn't helping any of our roses.

I've been using up an old bottle of a rose fungicide, which I think is probably outdated because it doesn't work well. LOL. (Leave it to me to use expired goods!)

I'm going to give you another link (oh, how I love the resources on the Internet...let me count thy ways!)... this one is to an article in Rose Magazine (Pacific NW based) on how to get rid of powdery mildew. I'm thinking that baking soda home remedy looks pretty good. I bet the aphids wouldn't like it either.
http://www.rosemagazine.com/articles02/pages/mildew.asp

I've also heard that Messenger® is very good for plants...actually I heard that at Pixy's and it might have been Gwen who said it. I was trying to remember the name of that stuff to give it a try.

I just remembered that I've heard that milk is good for rose too. I think. Spraying it on the plants.

Re the messenger, don't spray it on a day when it's going to start raining. (Can you believe this rain?)

Gwen

I had a lot of trouble with mildew on my roses when I lived on that side of the mountains. Water to spray off the aphids and encourage the beneficials only seemed to encourage the fungus, leading me into a double bind. I grew a lot of roses, but was never happy that I had a sustainable maintenance system for them.

Some of the fruit tree sprays (fungus + insect protection) seem to work well if you want to go the chemical route. Otherwise, in severe cases it can be a good idea to remove all of the affected foliage and treat with one of the low impact organic preventatives listed by previous posters (powdery mildew is quite resistant once established). Roses are quite capable of being defoliated and pushing out all new growth at most times of the active growing season. Follow up regulary to prevent new establishment of fungus and mildew. Aphids love the new growth best, though, so either use a traditional insect control protocol or encourage the natural predators (ladybugs, lacewings, etc.) in your garden. Just beware that chemicals generally kill the beneficials faster than the pests, so once you start be prepared to continue.

Over here where it's dry, we just blast them off with water and the predators bat cleanup.

I grow fewer roses now since we are in deer territory and they just eat them like they're pigging out at a salad bar. I can say that where we lived before, I made sure all of my roses were in an area of good air circulation and sun, were not touching other plants, I didn't set the sprinklers to go on at night, and put Ortho systemic rose and flower care granules around their bases every month during the blooming season. Even with all of this effort, I STILL got black spot and aphids. Tried ladybugs, then ladybugs moved into our house by the millions.

Some roses are a hassle, and I decided that they were mostly not worth the trouble in this damp climate, but when we moved to this house four years ago, I did plant Iceberg (lovely white, disease resistant) and Cecil Brunner with whom I've had a love affair for years.

Gees, Thanks everyone. I don't even know what Messanger is. I have tried Systemic which used to work but didn't here. I have used Rose Defense which
has Neem Oil as a base. I just looked up Messanger but still am not sure what it is. Where do I find it? Thanks, Donna

P.S. Went to Wight's today and bought another rose Joseph's Coat. I still have hope.

Galega, does your Cecile Brunner repeat?

White, you can get messenger at a place like Ace hardware in their gardening section and a lot of nurseries carry it.

Gwen

Hi Gwen,
Yes he does repeat, which is why I love him so! That and the fragrance, that is.

Marianne Binneti had a great column on roses in our climate in today's paper (The Olympian) but it's probably syndicated in other papers in the area.

Sorry the link was bad - just google it. I tried to paste another, but it didn't work :>(

This message was edited Jun 10, 2006 8:38 PM

Plants talk to each other..my $1.99 roses thrive on neglect and they obviously told my peonies to do the same because they are both sprawling and displaying all of their charms...while I tend to my new Jasmines. Spoiled children screaming for attention apparently. If I clip them and bring them inside to languish in a vase or a quart jar they reward me by being scentfull and bold. I even forgot their President's day haircut. I don't worry about aphids or water..I just let them be .

I am about ready to give up on roses, too. Especially after last season the blackspot spread to my lace-cap hydrangea. I tried to use neem oil to get rid of it and was unsuccessful. It did not come back after dying back this winter. It was starting to spread to my star jasmine, but I transplanted the rose. Now that it is quarantined, maybe it will cause fewer problems. Its on its last chance.

This may be a strange question but is there air circulation in your new rose garden? If the air sits there, problems can happen. I remember at a garden I did my practicum at had catnip to attract hoverflys (looks like a small wasp and it hovers) which control aphids. They removed all fallen rose leaves in fall/winter to prevent blackspot, etc and removed any leaves infected.

I second the motion on Messenger. Very, very good stuff. But also, your classic hybrid tea roses are famous for suffering from every rose disease known. Even though they are really lovely, by living in the northwest, AKA RAIN COUNTRY :( , and by choosing to grow hybrid teas, you are starting with two strikes against you. Not only that, but many of them are sold on rootstock that is infected with rose virus, meaning that after two or three years, your shrub will just stop looking good and will eventually die. If you want to know more about that, go over to the rose forum and do a search on rose virus. You'll find lots of good info on that forum. I used to think I just couldn't grow roses until I learned about rose virus.

Around the Pacific Northwest, we have so much rain in the spring that you must start spraying roses, if you spray at all, the minute they start leafing out. All of these viruses overwinter on the rose shrub and also in the soil, and the rain carryies the virus from leaf to leaf. If you wait until you have 'symptoms', it's too late. There is nothing that will cure either black spot or powdery mildew. Once you have it on the shrub, it's all about control for that season. Neem oil is good stuff, too, but it will only control or prevent, not cure. If you have a badly infected branch on a shrub, I say whack it off. Be ruthless.

Growin, there is nothing strange about your post. You are absolutely correct about air circulation as well as good horitcultural practices in terms of removing infected leaves.

My suggestions are both the compost tea (also very good stuff and you can make it yourself), and Messenger, and then grow some old garden roses rather than hybrid teas. Buy the ones on their own roots, not the kind that are grafted. They will be smaller the first year, but they will quickly catch up to the others and will out perform them in every way. I've been growing roses in this climate for 20 years and I've finally decided that if I can't get a rose to look good by using the above methods, its not the rose for me. Messenger is the best product I have ever used, and it's organic!!! Yea!!!! If you are in love with some of the hybrid teas, just take some healthy cuttings, ones that have no spot of disease on them, and root them. Then you will have that rose on its own roots.

FYI about Messenger, it's made of Harpin, a plant protein. It works by stimulating the plant's immune system. I am totally in love with this product. My climbing Madam Plantier doesn't have a black spot on it this year and is covered with blooms! Last year I almost jerked it out I was so frustrated with the black spot!!

Over in the coop forum there is some preliminary talk about another messanger coop so you can buy it cheaper than their site or a nursery. check it out!

whitefor art, welcome to Roses, I have the same problem, I spray a fungicide every 2 week plus a insecteside once a month I spray liquid fence for deer control. it's a lot of work for that perfect rose. good luck hostajim1

Pixydish, thanks for the info! I have grown to hate roses because the hybird teas that I inherited with my yard are so prone to disease. Its sad to hate such a beautiful flower! Especially in the "Rose City". Shameful!

Any suggestions where to buy old roses on their original rootstock? How do I know what to look for?

JOIE,
Jackson Perkins is right close to you arent they?? I bet a trip to visit them would be GREAT, information wise.

Best;
bluelytes

hostajim1:
When I lived in Port Orchard (down by Salmonberry Creek, near where they redid the hill on Salmonberry Rd), I didn't know any gardeners in the area. Now that I'm in the Tri-Cities, I keep finding people from Port Orchard. For a town with an official population around 7000 I'm amazed at all of the people online from there that I failed to meet during the three years I lived there!

Thanks, once again, for all the great information. Regarding the air circulation you are probably right on. My roses are against my house on the south side but
there is a fence and a gate fairly close to them. Also I wasn't paying enough attention to the type of rose I put in. I just went merrily on my way through the
nurseries and bought what I liked. I will be much more careful in the future. And if a rose doesn't work out where it is I will first try moving it to a more open space. I do have an arbor with climbing Aloha on it in an open space and it does much better than the others. And I will go out right away and buy Messanger. Sounds like that is a great plant builder. :)Donna

Joie you are in so much luck!! One of the best places to buy own-root roses is just around the corner from you in Oregon.
http://www.heirloomroses.com/

Go there in person, don't order through the mail. It's worth the little bit of a drive out in the country just to see the roses. They are probably all in bloom right now so you could select based on fragrance (Heavenly!) and color, etc.
Remember that the ones you can buy will be smaller than what you would normally get, but by next year there will be no difference.

Sorry for the double post, I meant to hit 'browse' but hit 'send'. Here's a photo of a rose I bought there last year. It's The Alchemist.

But be careful!! Once you see them and smell them, there is no going back! It's very easy to get addicted!

I've always wanted to go there. My ancestors originally settled in St. Paul when they came here in the 1880's. Yep, I'm a 4th generation Oregonian!

Hello White4Art I too was a bothellonian. I used to live up by the old bothell cemetary in a small condo there. I love the 4th of July parade. Hey when I lived on the east side I learned to forget about growing anything but the heartiest roses. Any other plant on the planet earth will thrive there. Don't waste your time on Roses. Too discouraging. You would have better luck with a bannana tree. LOL

Sofer, I fear you were simply growing the wrong roses!

tropicalaria,that's amazing, I live on long lake rd. just south of salmonberry. I just started gardening in ernest 3 years ago. now I have collections of Hostas, Ferns, Epimediums. good luck to you over there. hostajim1