Time to get past the colors. In my garden, I first see potential RRD from a distance. Remember how I said in your other post that roses are predictable? They are. If you see a mass of leaves within a huge rose, often it's just a birds nest. But occassionally it's witches broom, which happens when the back up leaf axil buds break, break again, and may break as many as 21 times. So that there's a cluster of new stems emerging from where there should be just one. Colors also draw us, especially when they are unexpected. And this is the hardest thing, because I wasn't used to seeing colors on the bushes...only on the blooms. That very deep reddish purple color comes with some roses.....it's always been there, we just haven't noticed it. But when it comes to Rose Rosette, we HAVE to look past the distant view. In my garden I have come to demand that there are three different symptoms before I say RRD (followed by expletives). Color is just one. And for color, I have asked on here (and will continue to ask) is anyone seeing that color on the same cultivar in my part of the country. Then I look at leaf symmetry, at leaflet symmetry, at the edges of the leaves, at the stipules (I place a lot of emphasis on stipules), on the spaces between leaves (internodal distances), on the buds themselves...some lack the hip part, some have too many rows of sepals and no stigmas...all sorts of things basic to the rose that go wrong. Aggierose, what you're going to have a real problem with is that your leaves are hitting serious summer heat too early. Those roses are putting out what are potentially good leaves (check the leaf edges), but the afternoon heat (I saw Dallas' temps yesterday and that was hot) is going to crisp up some leaves and stunt others. So you're going to get bushes with big healthy leaves from last month and early this month followed by skimpy leaves. (In my garden, the early spring leaves were small, followed by great honking big leaves from April when we had one great slow rainfall with 2" of rain and lots of N thanks to thunder storms, and now we are back to dry.) So we both are going to have to ignore leaf size and get to the up close look for the basics tield to the genetics of the rose. RRD messes up the rose morphology in ways that we can see, but we have to look closely. Sadly, this looking will continue as long as we grow roses. But knowledge means we can continue. We just learn more and share it.

Sometimes, nurseries have plants on hand that are not listed as available. So this could be Bonica, and just not in their plant list? One rose we purchased from ARE was clearly mis-labelled, but we could not match it to anything they listed. It is a great rose, so we kept looking. Ten years later, we found its match -- a rose they NOW offer. Jeri

Yes, topping them down to 8 or 9 feet should be fine. To get more density/fullness, adequate water and fertilizer, then tip prune and tip prune and tip prune the new growth to gradually develop more leafy stems. The basic problem is they are planted too close to each other and too close to the fence, so can't develop enough branching and foliage to look really good. Someone was in a hurry to get a screen and didn't think long-term. Good care and patient light trimming over a period of time can make them look a lot better than they look now, though.

Thorns, no smell. Bush about 4 ft. Matte leaves. Thanks-:)