There is a virus called Spring ROse Dwarf virus http://buggyrose.tripod.com/irosepests.htm#ROSE SPRING DWARF One of the roses I am helping care for at an elderly clients home I believe has it as well. IF that is what it is, it appears it is not contagious persay and that as the temps get higher the roses leaf out "correctly". Ednas is now looking wonderful after starting off looking VERY bad. She won't let me destroy it and replace it as someone gave her the rose.... This is what hers looked like in early spring: and this is what it looks like now that the weather is warmer. As you can see it s about to burst out all over with blooms. If you look deep into the foliage you can still see the smaller, mishapen leaves, but the new growth is looking amazing, considering she had nothing done to them for 3 or 4 years and it started off like it did. Hope this helped. She told me it was an iceberg but I think she has it confused with another of her flowers as this one is yellow. She is in her 90's so I guess she can say and do what she likes about her roses!

Even with pics, it's impossible to rule out other things but this looks like a plant that is struggling with the difference in soil between its' peaty root ball and the surrounding soil. This just happens sometimes, despite anyone's best efforts to plant and then coddle them well. Combined with a little frost bite, it's had a struggle. Looks like it's on the frontier, the edge of the bed, and may have been more affected by the frost because of that added exposure. Try not to water it unless it's truly thirsty. That will give it cause to make roots beyond the peat ball. Having long-term mulch there is good. You might have to dig a little deeper, push it back a little bit to give tiny new plants like this room to breathe, but the soil under there should be very nice, well-drained, more fertile, not drying as quickly, moderating temp extremes in summer and winter, a great thing. Replace as needed, as it decomposes, to keep a 2-4" layer of fresh on top. I wouldn't see any need to fertilize these plants. Coleus have always grown well for me without it, especially in the ground. At this point, if you remove the big, mostly damaged older leaves, you'll end up with much nicer looking* plants with many more branches and total mass of foliage. From this angle, the ones I'd remove have orange stars on them, and any others that are more brown than green. The dead parts are just blocking the light. This will allow light to reach more parts of the plant, improve air circulation, and encourage many new tips (which will soon be branches) to grow away from the main stem. I prefer this over pinching the tips on new plants this short, as there is no reduction in height, and the difference at the end of the year is astonishing if done vs. not done at all, and between tip-pinched vs. removing the original leaves from the main stem but not the tip. Glad you find it helpful, I love babbling about one of my fav plants! *Sometimes one might want a tall, thin plant, which is fine. Just trim nothing at all.

I have been trying to grow a desert rose for many years now. When I first got it the pot was too small so I repotted it, but I used regular soil and was very tricky to water it just enough to keep it between brown tipped leaves and yellow leaves. I finally read up and repotted it into cactus/succulent potting mix. When I had pulled it out of the old pot I was amazed it was still alive because it had only 2 or 3 small roots coming off the big ball, and it surely had root rot. There was not much at stake so I washed it in water and actually sprayed it very hard with the hose nozzle to clean off the black stuff. Back to the new pot and soil, it started to grow very fast but the leaves will not get dark green, they look pale. The soil was miracle grow and I'm wondering if it has the wrong fertilizer in it? Also even though it drain much better than before, I think I'd like to pot it again with a good amount of sand added to the succulant soil so it drains even better. Oh, I did pull it out of the new soil once to see how the root rot was doing and it had grown new roots like crazy! I couldn't believe how fast the new roots grew! So what do you think I should do? Add sand because I feel it is still holds too much water, and what about the pale green? It used to have dark green leaves. It has only bloomed once in many years, sometimes I just can't give up on a living plant no matter how bad it looks. Thanks, Tony

It does have drainage. I usually water it enough so that water drains out the bottom into the tray (I tend to water enough where I need to soak the excess up into a towel from the tray). I use to take it into the bathroom and thoroughly flush it with every watering, but it has gotten so big that I cant do that anymore. I water it about every two weeks, making sure the soil is pretty dry a few inches down, depending on the weather. I'm in L.A. and it gets lots of light so sometimes it dries out faster in hot weather. When I repotted it, I flushed the roots with water and didnt root prune per se, but roots did break off, I believe they had weakened due to the salt. Because of the salt, I rinsed quite thoroughly to make sure the old soil was all removed. I have a feeling this is where I went wrong :/ As for soil, I use Edna's Best and I mix in Orchid Bark and Perlite for drainage. I have not fertilized since I repotted, but prior to that I used Jobe's Fertilizer Spikes and replace every 8 weeks or so which I start in the spring. It had lots of new growth through spring and summer, but I hadnt seen any new growth for the last month (where as the other FLFs each just had new growth). The leaves at the the base of the branches are all dying off, but the tops are still healthy and shiny. What can I do to make it stop? Is there any way to save it? I'm worried that this will make its way through the branches and kill those off too. Should I be pruning the branches or just leaving it alone? Thanks for your help!