I bought a bush of `Hansa' a few months ago. In most places
I've lived, such Rugosas have been trouble-free, but I'm in
zone 8b, in North Florida not far from Gainesville now. Most
of my roses (too many of them still in pots, too many of them
bought as bare-root from Wayside Gardens at 2/3 or 3/4 off
list price as end-of-season closeouts) have had some trouble
with black spot; some were almost defoliated...

Hansa isn't one of them. No sign of black spot, but the leaves
were darkened with what looked like some sort of a rust. I've
been spraying everything every week, alternating Daconil and
Funginex; last time I mixed Peters' 20-20-20 fertilizer with the
Daconil in the hope of a tad extra fungicidal action from the
copper in it (well, the dry stuff looks like Miracid, so I assume
it's got some copper). The old leaves are still spotty, but there
are now some new ones growing that look unblemished so far.
Not much leaf drop. I'll keep up the spraying, as we've started
into a rainy stretch again after a couple mostly-dry weeks. This
climate demands irrigation (I use drippers): you can go months
without using it, but when it's dry here, it's very dry, the nearby
swamps dry out and sometimes catch fire, and you water your
plants or they die.

What gives? Do rugosas just hate this climate, or are they (or
maybe just Hansa: last I checked my Sir Thomas Lipton was
okay) susceptible to other fungal diseases but not black spot?

Mark., 8b, acid sand/clay mix with too much phosphate

Mark, are you saying you know rugosas hate spray of all kinds and that
you spray your plant anyway? My Blanc Double de Coubert dropped all its
leaves when I foliar fed it one year.

In article , Mark. Gooley
wrote:

I bought a bush of `Hansa' a few months ago. In most places
I've lived, such Rugosas have been trouble-free, but I'm in
zone 8b, in North Florida not far from Gainesville now. Most
of my roses (too many of them still in pots, too many of them
bought as bare-root from Wayside Gardens at 2/3 or 3/4 off
list price as end-of-season closeouts) have had some trouble
with black spot; some were almost defoliated...

Hansa isn't one of them. No sign of black spot, but the leaves
were darkened with what looked like some sort of a rust. I've
been spraying everything every week, alternating Daconil and
Funginex; last time I mixed Peters' 20-20-20 fertilizer with the
Daconil in the hope of a tad extra fungicidal action from the
copper in it (well, the dry stuff looks like Miracid, so I assume
it's got some copper). The old leaves are still spotty, but there
are now some new ones growing that look unblemished so far.
Not much leaf drop. I'll keep up the spraying, as we've started
into a rainy stretch again after a couple mostly-dry weeks. This
climate demands irrigation (I use drippers): you can go months
without using it, but when it's dry here, it's very dry, the nearby
swamps dry out and sometimes catch fire, and you water your
plants or they die.

What gives? Do rugosas just hate this climate, or are they (or
maybe just Hansa: last I checked my Sir Thomas Lipton was
okay) susceptible to other fungal diseases but not black spot?

Mark., 8b, acid sand/clay mix with too much phosphate

Hansa, a rugosa, is probably trying to tell you to stop spraying it!

Leave it alone, and see how it does. My Pink Grootendurst endures light
foliar feeding and Messenger, but shrivels and drops leaves if I dare to
dose it with whatever the spray of the (bi-)week is.


Scopata Fuori





"Bad Cat!"

"Cass" wrote:
Mark, are you saying you know rugosas hate spray of all kinds and that
you spray your plant anyway? My Blanc Double de Coubert dropped all its
leaves when I foliar fed it one year.

Desperation. So far it's only been fungicides, and they
don't seem to have made it any worse. I've been spraying
my roses (all of them, not many rugosas) for only three weeks,
and new growth looks okay, so far. I'm crossing my fingers.
I dislike spraying anything on anything, except glyphosate (aka
Roundup) on weeds.

Oh, I've got a mess of potential problems here in North Florida:
fungal diseases, grasshoppers, animals, nematodes (a lot of clay
in the soil in my area, and hairy indigo growing as a weed on my
land is perhaps suppressing them a bit), and more. Flip side:
climate mild enough for almost any variety.

But you're right about rugosas, and I wouldn't be risking it
if the `Hansa' didn't look so sickly. Oddly, my (still potted)
`Sir Thomas Lipton' is not doing badly, so maybe I shouldn't
spray it at all...and I think I have a Blanc Double in a pot too
(one loses track, or at least I do) I might be putting in peril.

Mark., forgetful

In article ,
says...
Mark, are you saying you know rugosas hate spray of all kinds and that
you spray your plant anyway? My Blanc Double de Coubert dropped all its
leaves when I foliar fed it one year.


Ny Hansa has been getting sprayed and fed with a systemic for about ten
years now. Even with severe annual pruning, it's over 6' tall and 6'
wide. If spraying is stunting it, all I can say is thank goodness :-).

Amd yes, a lot of rugosas don't like sprayed. The closer to the original
species rose the more dislike. But Hansa (and Delicata, and Marie
Bugnet) is not one of them.

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

In article , Larry
Blanchard wrote:

Ny Hansa has been getting sprayed and fed with a systemic for about ten
years now. Even with severe annual pruning, it's over 6' tall and 6'
wide. If spraying is stunting it, all I can say is thank goodness :-).

Amd yes, a lot of rugosas don't like sprayed. The closer to the original
species rose the more dislike. But Hansa (and Delicata, and Marie
Bugnet) is not one of them.

Good stuff to know.

"Mark. Gooley" wrote in message ...
I bought a bush of `Hansa' a few months ago. In most places
I've lived, such Rugosas have been trouble-free, but I'm in
zone 8b, in North Florida not far from Gainesville now. Most
of my roses (too many of them still in pots, too many of them
bought as bare-root from Wayside Gardens at 2/3 or 3/4 off
list price as end-of-season closeouts) have had some trouble
with black spot; some were almost defoliated...


Florida is a tad warm for rugosas. They are native to places like
Manchuria and Siberia and do best with a definite chill period of
several weeks.

You should also realize that roses in Florida face serious problems
from soil nematodes. The roses that thrive there are almost all
grafted onto
R.fortuniana rootstock. Additionally, as you have discovered,
blackspot is
a big problem in FL.


J. Del Col

Yeah, but I'm only in zone 8b and I get a dozen 20F
mornings a winter. All those catalogs make claims
that various roses are suitable for zone 9. Yeah, okay,
maybe I should forget the rugosas.

I probably have fewer nematodes than most Floridians
due to the sand-clay mix naturally occurring on most of
my land; nematodes do much better in sand than in clay.
Also, hairy indigo got established on much of my 36
acres ages ago, and it's supposed to be toxic to root-knot
and other harmful nematodes. Hairy indigo seeds can lie
dormant for a decade, and then sprout in disturbed soil;
what with fixing nitrogen and supposedly poisoning the
nematodes, this is not a bad thing until you have something
else planted there. Lots of organic matter is supposed to
make nematodes less comfortable as well (people in
nearby Gainesville claim that one should mulch with wood
chips that rot easily, not with cypress chips, to provide new
organic matter over time).

Some safe-pesticide company is selling whole ground-up
sesame plants as nematode killer. Maybe I should plant
sesame to go with the hairy indigo, then rototill the plants in
before putting roses in an area. Also, I've been trying to
establish mycorrhizal fungi on my roses' roots, but I fear that
any systemic fungicides I try will get to them and kill them.
Still, I see that I'm in for some challenges, except with some
of the tougher roses: fungi, nematodes, deer, grasshoppers,
fire ants that tend aphids rather than eat other insects the way
they're supposed to.

It's hard to get fortuniana grafts here. I'm told that if I lived
nearer Orlando, where the soil has less clay and it's warmer,
I'd absolutely have to have them, barring some roses that can
manage on their own roots. There's one company that sells
roses on fortuniana wholesale, and some nurseries/garden
centers have them, but they tend to be modern varieties I don't
really fancy that much anyhow.

Mark.

Yeah, but I'm only in zone 8b and I get a dozen 20F
mornings a winter. All those catalogs make claims
that various roses are suitable for zone 9. Yeah, okay,
maybe I should forget the rugosas.

I probably have fewer nematodes than most Floridians
due to the sand-clay mix naturally occurring on most of
my land; nematodes do much better in sand than in clay.
Also, hairy indigo got established on much of my 36
acres ages ago, and it's supposed to be toxic to root-knot
and other harmful nematodes. Hairy indigo seeds can lie
dormant for a decade, and then sprout in disturbed soil;
what with fixing nitrogen and supposedly poisoning the
nematodes, this is not a bad thing until you have something
else planted there. Lots of organic matter is supposed to
make nematodes less comfortable as well (people in
nearby Gainesville claim that one should mulch with wood
chips that rot easily, not with cypress chips, to provide new
organic matter over time).

Some safe-pesticide company is selling whole ground-up
sesame plants as nematode killer. Maybe I should plant
sesame to go with the hairy indigo, then rototill the plants in
before putting roses in an area. Also, I've been trying to
establish mycorrhizal fungi on my roses' roots, but I fear that
any systemic fungicides I try will get to them and kill them.
Still, I see that I'm in for some challenges, except with some
of the tougher roses: fungi, nematodes, deer, grasshoppers,
fire ants that tend aphids rather than eat other insects the way
they're supposed to.

It's hard to get fortuniana grafts here. I'm told that if I lived
nearer Orlando, where the soil has less clay and it's warmer,
I'd absolutely have to have them, barring some roses that can
manage on their own roots. There's one company that sells
roses on fortuniana wholesale, and some nurseries/garden
centers have them, but they tend to be modern varieties I don't
really fancy that much anyhow.

Mark.