You sound like me when I first planted my BB and KO's last summer! lol. I have around 7 KO's and 1 BB. When I received my BB bush last Spring it said to keep it in the pot until Fall, and to plant it in the ground before a frost. And that's what I did and now the plant is several feet tall and wide! The KOs really do need as much sun as you can give them. Mine get sun from morning to night but I think they'll do well in 5-6 hours of sun. This is a new bed we built this year, so excuse the messiness of it, we'll make it better looking next summer. It's near our barbed wire fence and on the other side are weeds from a small pasture area. The red knockout on the left we planted last year, and it doubled in size this year. The other KOs were planted this year. The yellow Rose is the one that's just now starting to bloom. I have the other KO's in my other flowerbed. And they love water! Butterfly bush which is just now starting to bloom. Looking down the fence line.

Your problem right now is possibly due to lack of deep watering and a hungry soil. You're absolutely right to pick up the dead leaves because that does help to cut back on reinfection. For the soil, if you can add a good thick mulch of well-rotted garden compost (so you can't tell what went into it) and some ancient, no-smell-now steer or horse manure which is all crumbly, mixed in. About one bucket of manure to four buckets of compost. When autumn comes put about a two gallon swish of wood ashes around each plant. That's ash from untreated wood only. The ashes add potash and that helps strengthen the plants against disease and frost damage, too. You'll probably find that you'll get black spot again toward the end of the summer when all manner of fungi start showing. Just use one of the recipes already supplied. And, for next year - start with a well-fed soil. You can repeat the compost application in spring once growth has begun - but keep it back from the stems. The compost you put on now - and in the autumn - will be what the roses will be calling on for goodness to grow with. The spring application won't really become available until further on in the season. If your plants are getting too dry, you may also have a scale infestation along the stems. You can reduce this with winter oil or even soapy water and a dishwashing brush scrubbed over the infested stems. Prickly work - but worth it.

Backyardmomma, I am still here. : ) I am not a rose expert like Sammy, and I hope she and others who grow lots of roses see your thread and respond. I have had the fungal infection that causes black spot on the foliage of rose leaves but haven't personally seen it on canes, although I suppose since it can attack the foliage, and we all know that it does, then it likely could attack the canes too. However, there are some rose cankers that attack the stems and they can vary in color from shades of brown to purplish to black. I'm not sure which of the two you have, or if it is something else entirely. With last year being so extraordinarily wet, humid and cloudy, I am not surprised the roses have issues. I have linked the OSU Fact Sheet on roses for you and it describes the various diseases, including canker, and what to do for them. Fungicides are already on the store shelves and I'd buy one that lists roses as one of the plants it is approved to treat, and I'd follow the directions on the label. If the fungicides are not effective at cooler temperatures, they'll so state that on the label and tell you to wait until the temperatures reach a specific level. Because diseases like black spot and canker linger on plant litter, be sure to rake up and dispose of all of last year's leaves and this year's prunings. I wouldn't compost them because I'm not sure if the compost pile will heat up enough to kill them. I'd bag them and get rid of them. When you prune, be sure to disinfect the pruners in a water/bleach solution after each plant so you don't spread the disease from plant to plant. It probably would be a good idea to be very pro-active and try to get ahead of the diseases this year by treating all your roses regularly with a fungicide as the product label advises. With a very wet year in 2009, and with 2010 starting out with above-average precipitation, it is likely that there will continue to be lots of fungal issues on all sorts of plants this spring and not just on your roses. Good luck and I hope the roses make a nice recovery. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Factsheet on Growing Roses

I would love to have a Black Magic, Ink Spots, or Black Jade rose bush. I am also looking for a Blue Moon rose bush. If anyone out there has any of these please contact me at dragonflygirl99@yahoo.com Thanks Beth