Maybe you should investigate on the rootstock.
Do you know what were they?

Jocelen.


"Shiva" wrote in message
s.com...
Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

What happened:

I planted around 15 big, fresh, healthy bare roots from S&W
Greenhouse, all Weeks and J&P roses in early April. I babied them.
They all showed growth and many bloomed. Then inside a month they
began dying. They show signs of cane borers, but all my roses with
thick enough canes do and always have. (My usual spray doesn't treat
borers, I guess.) They died one cane at a time, turning brown and dry.

Where they were planted:

Nice big 2X2 holes, most in a cultivated bed that I had
professionally dug and amended in early 2002. Permatil all around,
then rich black soil. No fertilizer. Bud unions set just above the
soil surface. The bed is lower than most of mine but drains just fine.
These roses never sat in water.

Cass mentioned that it might be soil related, some sort of nutrient
problem or pathogen, which makes sense--however, in the bed where most
died there are healthy, beautiful own-roots that I planted Fall 2002
that are doing wonderfully and never missed a beat, have bloomed their
heads off, etc. They are Muncy Austins, Roses Unlimited hts such as
Granada, and some Michael's roses. Penelope and Paul Neyron are the
only "oddballs" in the group and are going great guns. These roses are
planted about ten feet from the dead bareroots, all along a chainlink
fence. If anything, the property slopes toward the healthy roses, so
they might have had the best chance of sitting in water. It is
certainly true that ALL of the roses I planted opposite the healthy
ones were the new grafted bare roots, and all are dead.

The area gets six hours of sun, at least, some in the morning and some
in the afternoon.

Any ideas? I can just buy ownroots from now on, but I want to KNOW
what did these in. I have had success with bare roots before.

Thank you.