Hi Jim: thanks for the picture of the mountains in your PA area ... that's so beautiful !! I live 1/2 hour northeast from DeKalb, IL. You are right that DeKalb is flat, mostly corn fields. I have more trees & and varied scenery here. My heavy clay is fertile too. I don't need to fertilize much, but I need to add trace elements for disease-resistance. This is my first year WITHOUT horse manure, and it's the most black spots, and disappointing year !! Horse manure NPK is low, but high in trace elements, thanks to its being a good source of bacteria. Plus zinc and copper vitamins added to the feed. Even if the soil is tested sufficient in NPK, with constant rain, and after heavy blooming .. nitrogen and potassium are leached out. Nitrogen can be re-supplied again with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which is abundant in organic matter like composted manure. But potassium has to be supplied via fertilizer. Henry Kuska, professor of chemistry and once had a garden of over 1,000 roses, made an excellent observation that perhaps roses become depleted of potassium after a bloom cycle, esp. late fall. I agree, I gave Comte de Chambord a big-dose of potassium at the start of its 2nd flush ... it gave many petals-bloom, and the bulk of the blooms are heavier than the leaves plus the wimpy root. Now at the end of its flush, it's breaking out in B.S. To make zillion-petals bloom, a lot of potassium and calcium are needed prior to each flush. Less-petals like Knock-out are more disease-resistant, because the bulk of its roots is more than the bulk of the blooms ... the roots can easily fetch more nutrients. So for wimpy-root roses like Comte de Chambord and Jude the Obscure, immediate soluble fertilizer is needed for blooms & disease-protection. Why Mr. Lincoln is more disease-resistant for your soil than else where? Perhaps Mr. Lincoln root is most vigorous in your particular soil to fetch the nutrients needed to fight against diseases. Romanticas are clean in my alkaline soil, since their roots are very vigorous at my soil pH, with plenty of dolomitic lime for them. Your pic. shows the mountains in PA, which means less air-flow than my open Chicagoland. Plus I don't get dew, as you stated, "Here we get heavy dews outside. So around 10pm the leaves on our roses are getting wet as if it rained. They dry off early to late morning so perfect breeding grounds for BS." I find that dry & leathery leaves like Crimson Glory (prone to mildew in dry climate) tolerate wetness on its leaves. Crimson Glory is my top-clean rose, even after 1-week of constant rain. Same with shiny leaves like Pat Austin ... that one is known as a water-hog & loves the rain, but become droopy in hot & dry weather. Christopher Marlow has thick & shiny & rain-resistant leaves. It's the thin-leaves like Comte de Chambord that can't take the humidity nor wetness. I have to give that SOLUBLE calcium & potassium to make its leaves thicker. Same with Gruss an Teplitz, leaves can't take wetness, and he's the parent of Dr. Huey rootstock. Zinc and copper are the 2 strongest antifungal agents, and some soil are more deficient in those. That's why this year without horse manure, my roses are the worst ever. Calcium is a weaker antifungal agent, but it still works. That's why my Duchess de Rohan planted in my clay fixed with tons of gypsum, is 100% clean despite being a shady, perpetually wet spot where other perennials are mildewed, and other roses with BS. My clay is dolomitic lime, and I'm next to a limestone quarry, yet my soil is tested barely adequate in calcium. One hundred plus-petals bloom like Austin roses require lots of calcium and potassium, versus less-petal Knock-out. Below is a bouquet picked today, July 23, showing the many petals roses. The firm-petal one like Stephen Big Purple which lasts long in the vase, also requires an ungodly amount of calcium. It does very well next to my limestone-based patio, and doubled in growth after application of gritty lime. Pink is Sonia Rykiel, yellow is Golden Celebration, small beige Mary Magdalene, big peachy pink are Evelyn. This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Wed, Jul 23, 14 at 22:56

It could already be dead. http://water.weather.gov/precip/  shows Indiana having above normal precip this summer. I'm guessing you have heavy clay soil and did not plant it on a mound to help shed excess rain. OTOH, this doesn't look quite like the firs I had die of my local root rot species...which has been a lot over the years...so I don't want to commit to a diagnosis. Mine tended to turn brown and hold their needles for a couple weeks. If it isn't quite dead and root rot is the problem, it's really too late for an anti-fungal to help it in the near term, but I (and others) have had some degree of success rescuing rhododendrons that were in rapid decline by irrigating with clean water with a 1/10 dilution of drugstore H202, this seems to rapidly kill off some of the problematic organisms although maybe not all of the ones involved. Then the next day, treat with a real anti-fungal if you are so inclined; but you probably need a professional one to fight Phytophthora at this point. I'm not sure any product at HD & Lowes is actually labeled for that and then you're asking yourself if spending $50+ to save a less expensive plant make sense, when you could always just start over. It isn't very big and that isn't a super rare species. You could always try Actinovate which, although it isn't labeled for many root rot organisms, I've heard some good reports about and which isn't too expensive.

You are in the wrong forum :-) This is not a landscape design issue. Try posting - with illustrating photos of the problem - in the Garden Clinic or even the Perennials or Groundcovers forums.

rosecanadian and Ken - thanks for the info! I was super nervous about it. I've removed the cane and cut all the way down to the base so the plant can focus on the healthy side (which yes is on the right - it grew kind of weird, honestly it almost looked like it had TWO bud unions on a single graft). It's looking ok so we will see what happens in the next week or so. I am so glad I didn't just rip it out! Last year it made such lovely flowers so I can't wait for the flowers this year. Most of my roses are a mix of pinks, reds and purples. I have some yellows, whites and creams thrown in that give a lovely contrast. Since everything is still a baby for the most part I can't wait to see them all fill in over time.