dave weil wrote:
On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:52:18 GMT, Kim
wrote:


Hi,

I live in IL and this is my first time having rose bushes. I have one
rose bush that dropped all it's leaves so I thought it was dead. I was
watering all of the bushes yesterday and noticed that one stem has new
leave coming out. One of the other bushes seems to be doing well but
the leaves on one branch have dried up and curled up but the rest of the
bush is doing well. Any advice from anyone would be appricated. I
should mention that they did have the black spots on the leaves but I've
been spraying them and also, there are moles diging in the bed and small
ants. Could this all be the problem?


Black spots on the leaves can be from several different sources, but
the main cause is the aptly-named "Black Spot", which causes the
leaves to fall off. Usually you see a small black spot that starts to
get bigger, or multiply and then the leaf starts turning an autumnal
shade of yellow (even if it's in May). The leaf then falls off.

Once Black Spot (the specific disease, not the symptom) hits a leaf,
it's toast. Doesn't matter if you spray and spray and spray. The only
thing you can do is prevent, not cure, at least at leaf level. The
thing is, this is spore-driven infection and the spores stay on the
leaves, even through the winter. You need to collect all of the leaves
off of the ground and dispose of them in a sealed plastic bag.

Another source of defoliation is Japanese beetles. It's not so much
that they eat the leaves, which they sometimes do when they've
obliterated all of the blooms. It's more of a stress to the plant in
general. Some of my roses that were beset by the little buggers
dropped almost all of their leaves in July and August. They are just
now starting to come back with new canes starting and new leaves
coming in.

If you have a single branch that has turned brown, you can prune it
back at anytime. Prune back until you find white in the center of the
stem. It's no big worry if you have to prune a dead branch completely
if the rest of the bush is fine.

Moles can certainly be a problem for the ultimate health of the plant
(after all, they disturb the root ball in some pretty drastic ways).
I'm not sure if ants are a big problem.

The man thing is to put a leaf into a baggie and take it to your local
garden center. They can tell you if it's black spot or some other
fungal, viral or bacterial infection.


Thank you Dave for all that info. I'm pretty sure it's the black spot
thing. The bad thing is, one plant has lost all leaves and only has two
green branches left. One has new leaves coming in and the other looks
like it may have some starting. The rest of the plant is the larger
stalks and that's what I didn't really know if I should cut back.

Another thought I had was to totally transplant them somewhere else
because they are under the eves of the house and I would like for them
to get rain. I can't really avoid the moles because they are all over
our yard. Do you think that I can transplant even if I just planted
them last spring or would that be too stressful on them to move them so
soon. I think I'm going to buy a book about roses, they have a good one
at Home Depot that I was looking at.

Kim