The geometry of the photo suggests Cass and Radika are correct (as
always - no surprise there at all) and that damage from rain or other
liquid is the prime suspect.

The foliage looks remarkable. The buds on each side of the open bloom
show no ill effects. The photo is close up and enlarged enough so
that aphids or other parasites would likely be visible, and not a
single creepy crawly is anywhere to be seen.

In short, except for the brown spots on the open bloom, this appears
to be an exceptionally healthy plant.

Before you inflict Agent Orange upon your garden, try a little mental
origami. Pretend you're watching time-lapse photography in reverse so
that the rose bloom closes back up into the original bud. (ie -
imagine it "un-blooming".) Seems to me that virtually all of the bad
spots would end up overlapped in only one or two places in the closed
bud.

In other words, when the bloom was in the just-about-to-pop stage,
just like the buds in the photo on the left and right of the bloom, a
drop or two of liquid got into the "cracks" in the vulnerable bud,
soaking through many layers of petals and staining, burning, rotting,
or otherwise damaging them. Then when the bud opened, you got the
paper snowflake effect, with the bad spots scattered all around the
bloom as the stained petals separated.

The rest of the plant is quite impressive, and I'd be terrified to use
chemical agents on such magnificent foliage. The side effects would
likely outweigh the benefits.

The plant itself seems to be in no state of peril whatsoever. Unless
the photo is misleading or this plant is not indicative of the rest of
your roses, I'd just wait and watch the next wave of blooms and see if
they do any better.



On Sat, 10 May 2003 22:03:36 GMT, "Me"
wrote:

My rose plants have not been producing good roses this year. It looks like
they are brownish on the outside.

Before they bloom, while they bloom, they look 20% dead.

One store sold me generic disease control, one store said it looks fine, and
another store said although he couldn't find any thrips, it had all the
symptoms.

I'd tend to believe the last person, because he sold me on a product his
store didn't carry and sent me to another store. He had a pebble based
systemic solution that would take long to take effect and suggest I go to
another
store and buy the liquid Ortho systemic.

I have a picture of one of the roses at
http://home.earthlink.net/~cenews/garden/

I can email other pictures if anyone would like to take a closer look. I had
a hard time getting the first on the web site.

I have eight different rose plants in my front yard and all have hte same
symptons. I live in the San Fernando Valley Foothills in L.A.


Thanks.