I've never had Firefighter, but I do have Mr. Lincoln. I was finally able to get a virus free one on fortuniana. He's a great old classic and smells absolutely heavenly. I have never had too many disease issues with him, with no spray, as long as he is in full sun. If he gets a few cruddy leaves, I just pick them off. I feel he can be grown organically. The new growth is beautiful. Sandy

My Earth Song--about 8 years old and moved at least 3 times--has RMV and has never had rust. The RMV hasn't seriously impacted my Earth Song, as far as I can tell. Here are a couple samples of its spring performance: Earth Song--bottom right corner My daughter's pic of Earth Song several years ago and in a different location: Heavily pruned Earth Song--couple years ago after winter-freeze damage due to a lot of freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw fluctuations in early spring. That is the most severe pruning I ever had to give Earth Song, but as you can see, she bounced right back and had no trouble blooming again although she was shorter than usual as a result of the heavy pruning. Earth Song close-up--from about 6-7 years ago. Another Earth Song close-up from about 7 years ago. Wish it would hold that form for longer period of time. My conclusions, based on my experience with Earth Song: 1. Earth Song is NOT a "rust-bucket" in regions where there are NOT high rust pressures--which is most of America, I believe. 2. Earth Song is a fairly heavy and willing bloomer. 3. If Earth Song suffers from late winter freeze damage, heavily prune it back to good canes (with white centers) and it will spring back willingly with abundant blooms. 4. Under normal and usual Midwestern growing conditions, Earth Song exhibits good disease resistance (including good BS resistance). 5. My pics above show what a RMV Earth Song typically looks like and how it blooms. I can't see it is suffering much from being RMV. Sorry I don't have a picture of a leaf with the zigzag marking on it, but it never occurred to me to take a picture of it. I just had to come to the defense of this good rose, given the beating it has taken on this thread. Kate

Aggierose, RMV stands for "Rose Mosaic Virus," one of 2 rose viral diseases I'm aware of; the other is Rose Rosette Disease. RMV is not natural to roses. It somehow got introduced through rootstock grafting or budding, and came, I think, from apple trees or some such thing. Anyway, its been a widespread problem in the U.S. for the past few decades, the latter part of the 20th century, as mass production through infected rootstock sources led to mass infection. I don't think there was much public awareness, though, until just the past several years or decade or so. Basically, RMV weakens the infected plants so that they don't perform as well as they otherwise would, are more susceptible to fungal diseases and more easily succumb to winter freezes, among other things. It's sneaky, though, becuase there is no easy way to identify all infected plants without laboratory testing. and different rose plants respond in quite varied ways to being infected. Some never manage to grow well and quickly die; others are seemingly healthy and productive for a few years, then gradually decline; and there are grades in between. One "clear" sign of the disease is mottled or varigated patterns on the leaves. But it is not always or even often present. There is no cure. VID or virus indexing is a method discovered to create clean rose plant stems from infected plants by growing the plants in strictly temperature-regulated rooms, hot enough that the virus can't reproduce but not so hot the rose dies. Whatever stems and leaves grow in those temperatures are, in theory, free of the virus, though the virus remains in the rest of the plant. UC Davis started a VID program several years back to help rescue more popular varieties that had been virtually or entirely taken over by RMV infections. Check out this address for more info, or you can just as easily do a web search on rose mosaic virus. http://www.marinrose.org/virus.html

Frank- No, you don't have to start all over. What variety did you get from Mr. Mills, if you don't mind me asking? Not everything I've ordered has been infected, so you might be ok. Even if, by chance, the one you ordered does have it, it shouldn't be a problem for you as far as the disease spreading. I just read an article published on the ARS by Malcom Manners stating that the only way of transmission is through grafting. Some people go to the extreme and dig the plant up and burn it. I don't see any point in this as I've never had it spread from one rose to another. The biggest problem for me is that they just don't grow like a normal rose. Much less vigor, flower size distortion, color distortion, and winter tenderness. Also very hard to exhibit an RMV rose unless it isn't showing. Even then you run the risk of someone taking your rose home from the show to root it. My advice: keep it until you find a clean version of it. It may still throw off some nice flowers and grow ok for you. Then again, it may be lackluster. Either way though, DON"T start over! Good luck with your new rose garden!! Kentucky Rose- Yea, the roses had it upon arrival. I didn't plant them in the ground. I ended up planting them in pots until I can get replacements for them. I didn't want to take up good spots in the ground for sick plants so I just potted them up. They are growing, just slower than the rest. I have exhibited a rose with RMV one time. I actually won Princess with her at the Tenarky Districts last year, in fact. The Variety is Bugatti (do not buy it from Mr. Mills!) and it's one of the few that doesn't seem to show symptoms much. But, like I said before, it just generally lacked vigor and I was always wondering how much better she really should be. Just seems kind of pointless to me. I had thought about just paying Mr. Mills and being done with him but the more I thought about it the more it angered me. How many people does he get this over on and how many people just say to hell with it and just pay him? Not doing it this time. Last time I gave him nearly 550 dollars just to have roses I already paid for show symptoms halfway through the season. Half the first ordered showed immediately, and the other half started showing up throughout the summer. I decided he wasn't taking me to the cleaners this time around.