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Strange 'death' of blooms

15 years ago

Something strange has happened to our roses this Spring. They bloomed beautifully, but then some of the flowers "died" a strange death. It was if some of them had been zapped in mid-bloom. They got about halfway to full-bloom and then just stopped opening and got a kind of dried-rose look, never getting full-blown or dropping petals in the normal way. To me, they look slightly "burnt". From this stage, they simply decay. The foliage doesn't seem to be affected in any way. They are five hybrid teas, and all seem to have this "whatever", except for one quite healthy Olympiad, which is some distance from the others.

Can anyone tell me what this might be? I am pretty new to roses (to gardening in general, in fact), and I don't think it's anything I did - mainly because I didn't do much at all, just some careful pruning in February, and, a bit later, some alfalfa meal lightly scratched into the soil along the dripline.The odd thing is, they look really healthy and bloomed magnificently, except for what I described above.

Thanks for any help you can give.

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Comments (4)

jerijen
15 years ago
Did they get that burned look right after that last round of 100-degree Santa Ana weather?

Jeri
Krista_5NY
15 years ago
On occasion I've seen odd buds that seem dehydrated and stunted somehow, and wondered what was the reason. It seemed as if the buds were unable to finish growing and blooming properly.

There were aphid infestations, and I used to wonder if that might have been the reason, maybe they drain the juice right out of the buds. But I was never quite sure why it did happen.
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rosarama
15 years ago
Sounds like some form of botrytis. I had these happen to some of my early spring blooms.
after spraying, the problem went away.
organic_tosca
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks, everyone!

Jeri - I did wonder about heat, as we had some a while ago, but we had no superhot Santa Ana here.

Krista - One of the affected bushes does have its leaves covered with what I assume is honeydew, although I see no aphids. I guess they must be there, though.

Rosarama - I looked up Botrytis on Google Image, but didn't find any pix that truly looked like our roses look. Still, it's certainly a possiblity...

ANYWAY, folks - it looks as though I'll never find out, because yesterday my sister heard from her real estate broker, and it turns out that the house sale has gone through, and we must move THIS WEEKEND!!! Much panic and hysteria on our part, but this morning we are On The Job. Miscommunication is a terrible thing... but it doesn't really matter, because I have been through a lot of moves, and something inevitably goes wrong, and all you can do is Press On. So, next stop Sacramento...
Thanks for the help and advice. My hope now is that my three babies from Vintage (my first older roses) did not catch whatever is wrong with those established plants. They are on the far side of the yard (in pots), so I hope they will be OK.
Thanks again,
Laura

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