My poor Jude the Obscure

16 years ago

This was the first year for my Jude the Obscure and it was doing great. I got lots and lots of beautiful great smelling roses from it. After one of the bloom cycles I cut off all of the flowers (about 18 of them) to bring inside and waited for it to start growing and blooming like crazy again. But that never happened. That was about 6 months ago. It never put out a single new shoot of growth. All of the roses around it continues to thrive. Now the whole plant has a rust color to it. Since this is my first time to ever have roses I'm not sure what they should look like in the winter, but this one does look different than the rest of my roses. How can I find out what is wrong with it? Should I just prune it way back and see what happens?

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (5)

Noni Morrison
16 years ago
Oh my goodness! That is exactly what happened to my Jude also! I even dug it up to check the roots thinking it was vole damage but the roots looked fine. By the end of summer it was totally dead. All the rest of the roses in my English rose garden were just fine. THe spot was a good one where I had had a big pile of compost about 3 or 4 years ago.

I think mine may have been from DAvid Austin Roses. I bought a band of Jude from Heirloom and have it growing in a gallon pot this winter. IT looks healthy as can be. But I sure would like this mystery solved. I loved Jude's flowers!
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
16 years ago
Are the canes (stems) still green or are they rust colored too. Clip off a little piece and see what the inside of the stem looks like. Is it white inside with a green ring? If so it is alive. If it is brown and dry inside then it is dead. You might have to cut off a lot of dead material to reach living cane, (but wait until winter is over to do that) or the whole thing could be dead. The "rust color" doesn't sound promising.

You might also tug very very gently on the plant to see if it lifts right out of the ground. That would tell you that something ate the root system.
Related Discussions
Jude the Obscure or Lady Hillingdon
Q
Comments (8)
Well, I haven't seen Olga's famous/fabulous LH but earlier in the year, when I was trying to decide whether to get one, the picture on HMF of the specimen in Australia (with the older gentleman standing next to it) decided me! I do have one bloom that just opened up today and I only got a glance at it but it was very pretty. I was walking around in the rain that was starting trying to check on all my new plants that are beginning to bloom. Hopefully the wind that is howling out there won't ruin them all before I can get back out there. I have one Jude that I got last year from Heirloom and it has been very puny the entire time. It looks a bit better this year and has a few blooms but doesn't seem as if it will develop into a nice robust specimen. I keep wondering whether I just got a weakling and should try another.
...See More
Jude the Obscure, grafted or own root?
Q
Comments (20)
Hi Diane: I'm very impressed with your Jude ... so healthy and tons of blooms in your alkaline clay. I have alkaline clay too, and roses grafted on Dr. Huey are awesome bloomers at the rose park, 15 minutes from me. My neighbor put a row of hybrid teas grafted on Dr. Huey, our soil is limestone clay, pH 7.7. He was cutting them for the vase everyday, dark green leaves, 100% clean, non-stop blooming. But only for 1st year, our zone 5a winter killed them. Hi Andreajp: Per your question of "Do grafted rose have an expiration date?" It depends on your soil/climate. In my zone 5a wet clay, grafted isn't best due to: 1) My neighbor planted his grafted hybrid teas at ground level, our -20 F winter zapped the bud union. 2) I buried a grafted hybrid tea at 4" below ground level. Dr. Huey doesn't like my wet clay, and declined. My hybrid tea went from 100% clean in the pot, to BS like crazy in that wet clay (mulched with leaves). Knock-outs in that wet bed lost their Dr. Huey's roots completely (these were planted 6" below ground). Knock-outs planted at ground level elsewhere retained their Dr. Huey. 3) The lifespan of Dr. Huey in my cold zone 5a is very short, the rose park replaces their HT's beds constantly.. the only ones that stay long are hardy Austin roses. Niels in Denmark, zone 5b, made the same observation that grafted doesn't last long, except for Peace hybrid tea. I checked in HMF and found Peace have thousands of descendants. Lots of descendants mean it can be grown easily from seeds, and root easily. Jude the Obscure has only 1 descendant, hard to root. Kim Rupert (Roseseek) in a dry and hot climate report that grafted on Dr. Huey lasts very long, like 80 years. In our cold and wet limestone clay, Dr. Huey lasts 2 years max if buried too deep. Everything decomposes fast in my limestone clay, lime is used in the old days to corrode corpses. Kim has shale clay, where imprints of ancient fossils are preserved ... he reported that nothing decomposes buried in his dry clay.
...See More
Getting impatient with spindly Jude the Obscure (pic)
Q
Comments (22)
Well, Jude is gone. I clipped his three blooms and brought them with when I took him and some other things to a friends house. That fragrance convinced her to take him on as a project, lol! The cement sidewalk is definitely not the issue, as every other thing in there looks like a jungle, including two late-planted bands from last year that were already bigger than a 3 yr old Jude when he left. I do adore that fragrance, though, so I think I wll be ordering him grafted for next Spring. I am tired of waiting! Terryjean, I remember those Lillians. Jude has no excuse now.
...See More
Love hate relationship with Jude the Obscure
Q
Comments (31)
Frankly, I can do without the cold weather, and I am jealous of you, fragrance. This chill was the worst in twenty some years of rose growing because it came on Nov 15, 2014, when all the roses were not dormant, and things still looked quite nice. Temps hit about zero for three days and just messed up the roses. Didn't trouble much else. It's always the roses--what prima donnas. Anyway, there was a clear demarcation between which plants can take the cold and had no damage, or very little, and those that don't do well at all dealing with this strange, unexpected kind of cold. I've concluded that it's genetics, pure and simple. Didn't matter what part of the garden they were located in, or even how young they were. I hope this doesn't happen again, but two years ago, we had something similar, too, so an awful pattern may be emerging. Diane
...See More
aggierose
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks hoovb. Can I cut off pieces now, or should I wait until it is warmer. I live in Dallas so we don't have much cold left! What would the rust color mean? Is it something I could have fixed when it first started? Also, If I check and see that something did eat the root system why didn't it eat the roots of all the other roses around my Jude?
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
16 years ago
Just cut one little piece off right now as long as your little finger, and see what you can see. Wait a while to cut a lot, because you might get a freeze sometime soon and you don't want to stimulate the formation of tender new growth that will get killed by a frost or freeze.

Rust are you talking the powdery rust disease? It sounds like you are talking about the whole plant. If the whole plant is a rust color, rather than just some fungal rust disease on the leaves--when the whole plant is a rust color, that sounds like a dead plant.

If something did eat the root system of one plant and not others, perhaps it got interrupted by a predator, or moved on to another area. If other plants in the area are not affected, it does not seem likely that the root system is gone, but it IS one thing you can quickly and easily check, that's why I mentioned it.
amandahugg
16 years ago
Now you know why he's obscure!

My poor Jude the Obscure

Comments (5)

Noni Morrison

hoovb zone 9 sunset 23

Related Discussions

aggierose
Original Author

hoovb zone 9 sunset 23

amandahugg

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

My poor Jude the Obscure

Comments (5)

Noni Morrison

hoovb zone 9 sunset 23

Related Discussions

aggieroseOriginal Author

hoovb zone 9 sunset 23

amandahugg

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

aggierose
Original Author