"beccabunga" wrote in message
...

dina;842281 Wrote:
Hi Beccabunga,
I did prune my roses and today I tried to cut of the infected leaves (I
read it is a fungal infection and to distroy them) but one of the rose
bushes is so bad that all the leaves are infected and the only way to
get rid of them is to prune the whole rose again. Is it OK to do do it
now? I know that it is a bit late but what else can I do since I
wouldnt like to use fungicide? Thanks for your reply.
Dina


Well, you can always give it a go. Prune back to an outward facing bud
well below the affected foliage. Give the rose lots of food.

Frankly I wouldn't hesitate to use a multipurpose Roseclear which both
deals with the pest and feeds the plant.




--
beccabunga


You may like to test a (so far successful) theory of mine, and give it an
acid feed. Pick off all the infected leaves first. I do this with all my
infected roses, usually about once a year or just when the infection starts
to creep back. It completely changed the life forecast for one of my roses
(which defoliated 2-3 times a year due to blackspot); I was on the verge of
binning it. Now everyone asks what it is. :~)

As necessary, I still feed with rose fertiliser or Tomorite to encourage
flowering, and occasionally with a general feed if a rose looks hungry.
Watering and mulching helps reduce stress, too, and it also stops fallen
fungal spores from reinfecting the rose, although the acid feed seems to
help with this, too.

Spider