The west coast roses suffer way more rust than do roses in other parts of the USA. Also roses varieties vary in their susceptibility to this disease. Some just get it in bad years, or only in the fall when conditions are worst. Those roses I tolerate, especially if they are favorites of Tom's or mine. Roses that get rust all the time -- my favorite term for this is rust bucket -- have a date with the shovel. Not having grown either of the roses you mention, I don't know which category these fall into.

What you might do is strip off all the leaves and spray with sulfur, plain sulfur ("Safer" brand fungicide). Plain sulfur is not nearly as toxic as lime sulfur. While it can burn in hot temperatures, stripping the leaves will eliminate this problem. Spraying will kill the disease on the bare stems. If the new growth comes in healthy, you are fine. If not, you have a decision to make.

Rosefolly

Ingrid, so sorry to hear of your rusty situation. Hopefully, it's a mild thing that can be dealt with as Rosefolly suggests. I must say I'm glad (ecstatic?) that I don't have to deal with this one. Interestingly, as I first saw the title of this post, I was glancing in "The Old Rose Advisor" at the rose 'Santa Rosa'. The last statement about it is "Another exceptional quality...is the power of resistance...to those ever-present foes of the rose family, mildew and rust." So if you have to replace one, this one might be a good choice - unless you already have it.

Hope your day brightens up. Gray is such a blah color - except for the lovely dove gray in your living room.

Sherry

There are two rust categories in my mind:

1. Roses that may get a touch of rust on senile foliage, late in the year . . .
2. Roses that rust regularly, and on new foliage.

I can accept 1.
I won't accept 2.

I'd strip off all of the rusted foliage and dispose of it.
I'm far too lazy to spray.
I'd check the water supply to those roses, for roses with insufficient water may rust more readily.

Iceberg is highly resistant to rust. I do NOT know if Burgundy Iceberg has inherited that resistance or not.

I'd watch those plants. This may be a temporary problem.
If they have enough water, and this turns out to be a continuing problem, I'd prune them with a shovel.

Jeri

Ingrid even though I live in a totally different climate - I have some roses that gets rust every year. Since I know these roses gets rust I am always on the look out for the first signs when these roses leaf out. When they are leafed out I inspect these rosebushes closely a few times every week - look for leaves with the characteristic small orange spots. I remove all these with no hesitation. This prevents that the rust spread and the bushes stay clean - if I had not done this it would not be a pretty sight 2-3 month later.

I have also found that roses that gets rust here are those that cling on to their leaves and don´t drop their leaves. Some Meilland and Austins (And climber Albertine) have this annoying habit. With the bush roses I meticously remove all the old leaves that have refused to drop (and of course remove the fallen leaves on the ground underneath). This sort of "garden hygiene" is the most effective preventive measure. I can imaginge in your climate roses have leaves much longer than here - so maybe an organic dormant spray will help some too?

I choose to spray these roses - with systemic fungicides: especially Systhane/myclobutanil and Bayer Advanced Disease control. Why don´t you spray these few roses? Are they part of your Victory Garden or are you eating them :-)

Thank you all so much. After I read rosefolly's answer I had to go out of town. After driving the 160 miles back and forth I raced out of the car, changed my clothes, shed some of my jewelry and started pulling off all the rusty leaves. My back and neck were not happy. Judging by the remainder of your posts it seems I've done the right thing. I think the situation is partially my fault because of overhead watering in the evening (which never bothered the roses before) and the cool and cloudy weather we've had for weeks, highly unusual for here. I have mildew that I've never had and now the rust.

Niels, you're so funny. No, I'm not going to eat my roses but like Jeri I'm too lazy to spray and the bees, frogs, lizards and birds have already told me they're against the idea. I'm amazed at the amount of work you put into disease prevention; you must be in much better physical shape than I am. I derusted and watered the roses (NOT on their leaves) and will watch the roses like a hawk. Burgundy Iceberg is practically the first rose I planted in this garden and I wouldn't like to lose it. OLOG is a favorite of my husband's and a good rose so I want to keep it too. I think I was a bit hasty in shovel pruning Pink Gruss an Aachen when it had rust but what's done is done.

I'm so grateful for your replies.

Ingrid

Ingrid, it is a personal decision on how much rust one will tolerate, but in California, rust is hard to get away from. No matter how healthy a rose, rust can still appear here and there. I tolerate a smattering of rust now and then. Although, I won't tolerate a rose that gets covered in rust. We have to count our blessings though. We don't have to contend with constant blackspot and Japanese beetles where we are. Those are far worse maladies. Good luck! I hope your roses stay healthy and I hope you keep OLOG, because yours is lovely.

Le jardin, I think my main concern with rust is that it will infect other roses, and that's a question that I think I forgot to ask in my initial post. If it didn't spread and the infestation wasn't too bad I could tolerate it. Japanese beetles would be so much worse, to me they're like something out of a nightmare. I think grasshoppers are our version of an obnoxious pest and I'm noticing more and more of them. I have no compunction about squeezing the life out of them.

Thank you for your good wishes.

Ingrid

Hi, Ingrid-
We've had more rust on the cemetery roses this spring than ever before. I blame the climate. We defoliated the roses last winter, so are starting fresh, but the rust is coating the leaves top and bottom right now.

Definitely, you need to get the rust-infected leaves off the roses and clean up the area underneath. A layer of fresh mulch would be good, too. I don't spray with anything. 'Admirable' was badly rusted in my home garden about a month ago - I took off all of the leaves, cleaned up the area, cut the rose back, fertilized - when I got home from my travels, it's covered in new foliage and looks spotless.

Overhead watering is fine, and washes off mites, mildew and aphids, but you need to do it in the morning so that the roses dry out by evening. Also, I think that water just splashes rust spores around. I would defoliate the rusty leaves before overhead watering again.

I haven't noticed rust spreading from one plant to another. It seems that some are susceptible to it, and get it if conditions are right, and some are not.
Anita

The only rose I ever removed for rust was 'Eugene de Beauharnais'/'Le Grande Captaine'
As much as I loved it, it drove me to despair.
I would remove the rusted foliage, clean everything up.
New foliage would open, and as the leaves unfolded, they rusted all over.
I've never seen that with any other rose here, and it was a disappointment.

Jeri

I see rust this year where I never have before. A Fair Bianca has rust on it!!! unbelievable, but the spring was very cold and very wet. Pluck off the diseased leaves, and spray the rest down with Funginex fungicide - there is no choice. Make sure there is plenty of organic compost covering the soil, bacteria live there that eat fungal spores and prevent rain from splashing the spores up onto the leaves.

Well, at least I'm not alone and it seems connected to the strange weather, so I feel a little better. It's also good to know that it doesn't spread to other roses. I took off all the rusted leaves on Saturday and haven't noticed any new ones so perhaps this will be controllable. I'll be careful how I water and will spread new mulch under the affected roses and hopefully that will help. klinko16, I don't use toxins of any kind and this is not a terribly bad outbreak, so hopefully it will resolve itself. If not, that rose will not stay in my garden. But I remain hopeful that if I'm careful I can control it.

I'm so grateful for your advice and support.

Ingrid

When I saw rust at Hershey in Pennsylvania, I brought some leaves home and checked them on the microscope and (this was fall) I saw two kinds of spores. When I read Compendium of Rose Diseases, it said that the black spores on the undersides are the ones that carry the disease over through winter. It didn't say if those are temperature dependent.
When you in California look at the undersides of your rusted leaves, do you see all orange sporangia and no black specks, or do you see the black specks year round (or never)?
(The black specks looked at by microscope look like two black wizard hats glued together at the hat bands. The orange 'spores' we see are actually sporangia with hundreds of spores, while the black ones are just two spores in a fruiting body that overwinters.)

Ann, I HAVE seen black specks, but I cannot say when.

Jeri

I don't think I've seen black specks but then I wasn't particularly looking for anything black. If I come across more leaves with rust on them I'll certainly also check for black dots.

Ingrid

I was out this afternoon thinning and defoliating. We've had a very moist and cool spring. Usually I don't see this much rust until fall. I did spray once in early spring but I have way too many reasons not to. I have lizards, frogs and praying mantis that I don't want to harm. I think I'm going to rake out all the mulch once I clean up the bushes, then re-mulch. It's a lot of work but I don't see an alternative.