Duchesse de Brabant:
yes.
as always.
but it does seem to be continuing a little later in the year than usual.

Mrs B R Cant:
not much

I think humidity makes the big fat cabbagey roses tend to ball.

Often it's caused by botrytis fungus, which germinates with rain (possibly protracted dew) in cool weather. Spring has been cool in the East. Pink spots or brown areas indicate botrytis.

It's a season-long problem here in the mountains, so much so that I've discarded a lot of roses mainly for that reason, including Abe.

It is annoying isn't it? I have two culprits in my garden. Brother Cadfael has big incurving blooms and about 40% of them have balled. Now, I do have that one in a good bit of shade, but it is supposed to do well with just 4 hours. Abe Darby is in a good spot and has no excuse and I get 30% spring balling on him. I used to hand open some, but then I thought to myself, why should I do all the work? Feeding and watering is my part of the deal. Abe better watch out, 'cause I'm short of space.

Juliet

A few of these are fairly new for me in the garden, so maybe I just didn't notice it before. It does seem worse this year, must be weather related. It isn't botrytis, no red spots. I do get that in the fall sometimes.

Yes, yes, yes, unfortunately. First my roses fried to an ugly brown ball because we had a week or just a few days of unusually dry weather with high winds then now we finally had some rain so they balled again. Clotilde Soupert is the worst as usual - right now her second flush is balling. Geoff Hamilton is the other awful looking victim but I could go on. I just deadheaded several hundreds of Cindarella fairy tale blooms that balled from the dry winds and I am done only with half of the bush - the plant looked glorious for about two days.

Buford, many roses get botrytis without showing pink spots. There get brown rotten patches, or the whole bud turns to a glob of peanut butter. I don't think there are a lot of roses that ball from moisture alone; probably some with globular buds and thin petals do. I wonder how many roses ball in the Florida summer when it rains every day but is too hot for botrytis?

Apricot Nectar is the queen of pink-spotting.

Not 1 even though there was a good ammount of rain early in the flush. SDLM a somtimes baller and La France all opened perfectly.

Interesting that there is so much variation in this respect among the SDLM clan. Kronprinzessin Viktoria has good resistance to petal blight; Mystic Beauty is fairly good; SdStAnne's gets brown spots but opens owing to the sparse petalage; SdlM and Capt. Dyel are very susceptible.

Some, because of late rain, but I'm so grateful for the rain it's okay. 'Evelyn' carefully timed her huge flush so that most of it was ruined. She's so good about that!

Buford, if the humidity or rain hits strongly and fast roses ball without the pink polka dots or rings, they just rot. It is still botrytis, IMHO. A rose must be able to open to get the dots or the rings but if the blooms turn into brown rotten balls before that the rings or dots don't/cannot show.

Clotilde Soupert-is a gorgeous rose when the weather conditions are just right----I've been able to get a few pictures this year but many blooms are brown and not very pretty---It makes me sad because she can be gorgeous--
Florence

Belinda's Dream balled for me since we had a miserably wet and dreary May. Red Eden is still to be determined, but I think Red Eden will actually open even though I've read about other people having balling issues.

It's phenomenal how long it takes Red Eden to bloom though haha. These buds were photographed on May 1st....they still have not opened though as of May 27th and I'd estimate they have another week or so to go. The blooms take MORE than a month to develop and bloom, but repay for their effort by giving blooms that last for 3+ weeks before I have to manually cut them off because they will start to get a little brown.
{{gwi:265993}}From 5-1-2010

You are inland so you have hope, Jaffcat. I gave away my Red Eden because it was absolutely hopeless in my coastal humid climate. I was depressed because the foliage was so clean I truly wanted to keep that rose. I think that rose was 'invented' for hot and dry California.

Buford, just think...when it's hot and steamy in July, you'll be thinking about how many balling roses you don't have. Heat is a plus - at least for that.

michaelg, I'll have to pay attention, but I don't think it's so much balling as it is the flowers getting waterlogged and heavy and laying in the mulch/dirt. Bermuda's Anna Olivier (pink dots) and Rosette Delizy (fuzzy grayish tan balls) show botrytis in my garden, and Clotilde Soupert can be ruined with a downpour. I "helped" her a lot this spring.

Sherry

We've had a cold, wet, gray spring (I still haven't put my Sansevierias outdoors, a record), and though I haven't noticed balling a lot of the medium pink roses are an unusual dull color, actually ugly ('Mrs. B.R. Cant', 'Louise Odier' come to mind). 'Jaune Desprez' is living up to her name being very nearly pure palest yellow: usually she has touches of peach and pink.
Melissa

Ya, add me to the list too among my many other problems this year! After my spring flush this is by far the worst year for pest and disease, ect! I've never seen anything like it. Very upsetting. ~Meghan