Mine aren't doing well either, the first round of pounding rain, brought my Distant Drum rose bush to it's knees, I had to take off a few branches that had snapped from the heavy rain and winds. Yesterday I noticed small bugs and eggs on my roses, both my hybrid teas and my shrub rose bush. Those small green bugs, not aphids but the other ones, name escapes me at the moment. I am so frustrated with roses, I'm almost ready to rip them all out, they are a lot of trouble sometimes.

Now it's raining again, and it's heavy rain and lots of wind. My Sorbet peonies just bloomed the other day and looked stunning, but after the first rain storm, well they're gone now, enough said.

It's so frustrating when you wait all year to see your garden bloom and then things like this happen, arrgghhh!

Linda

For the most part, they are surviving, but a lot of about to bloom buds are just withering before they open. Too much rain makes them near moldy, they get all brown and drop off.

However, so far leaves are still doing ok, and no major bug sightings. I did have some for about a week but I think the rain drove them off. One good thing to come of it.

My first flush is over, I'm bloomed out, except for a few blooms on a mini or two. Time to deadhead, fertilize and spray.

Here we are coming to the end of the most impressive first flush ever. The last time the weather cooperated this well, the big roses were new. John Cabot has finally grown up. Darlow's Enigma is a wall of almost solid white, with a fragrance invading the entire garden. Frontenac and Quadra just look like themselves - a sea of pink and red. Complicata is large enough to be seen from the house, and fades into the lighter pink of R. eglanteria. White Cap is putting on the best show ever, probably due to the mild winter. Things I ever forgot I had, like Maggie and Ballerina, are doing something.

We are still in the best flush ever--no cane dieback this year means the roses are as big as ever--and the weather has been such that even the late bloomers were putting out some blooms before the early bloomers faded. The early October snowstorm last year didn't hurt the bloom this year--though the rough weather did allow Radio Times to cover nearly a third of Carefree Delight.

well I guess not all is lost around NE thankfully! Glad some of you are having wonderful flushes! That gives me HOPE! Many of my roses after days of rain don't have any more leaves! :( The blooms that i did have look sick due to the bug infest from the rain! Luckily a few good days - just short showers and today was beautiful but there maybe another rain spell mid-week :( Hopefully the spraying will keep pests away!

I've been having the best first flush I think I've ever had. It's not over yet. New Dawn and Fourth of July are huge and amazing. Lady Elsie May is a mass of buds just starting to open. I can't believe Bonica survived my flooded-out (just STANDING water) flower bed from last fall (Irene plus Oct. snowstorm), but she did and looks glorious now. I am happy with the roses I planted last year (Lavender Lassie is growing rapidly up the side of my deck), and my minis are doing well also.

urk, well it is something of a mixed bag on this side of the pond. After we all faced hosepipe bans after months of drought, it started to rain in April and has not stopped since apart from 1 freaky weekend of real summer heat (for England, 26C is almost tropical), So, blackspot has definately arrived early along with many, many evil beasties, Even so, some roses are quite stupendously lush as is (almost)everything else, especially weeds. I don't get around to doing much staking and boy, am I paying the price now, after another wet and windy week - giant foxgloves leaning drunkenly into oceans of massive ox-eye daisies and giant sowthistles which appeared practically overnight. So, I am finding myself somehat glutted with abundance, a tad anxious as I am really not keeping up with tropical levels of growth (East Anglia is the dryest part of the UK and water has always been much more of a limiting factor than heat or light) and the awful spectre of early blight is looming - although my tiny tomatoes are so small, any self-respecting blight spore will surely move on to leafier pastures. On the other hand, the tree-like potatoes are presenting a much juicier target.
On a more rosy note, the multifloras (Ghislaine, Goldfinch), hybrid musks and the wichuranas are full of promise - just starting a full-on bloom cycle but the chinas are emphatically not happy with our cool wet spring (Mutabilis is a ghastly skeleton of mildewy and sparse foliage and Sophie's P and Cramoisi are looking glum. Bourbons are not having a great time either whereas a couple of rather 'meh' modern floribundas and climbers (Arthur Bell, Penny Lane, Meg) are having the time of their lives - I may have to make more of an effort generally with watering - after doing the veggies and rudbeckia type perennials I misguidedly planted (My ahem 'prairie'), I am dying of boredom from standing about with a hosepipe (there are shared standpipes at the allotment so soaker hoses and timers or sprinklers are not allowed).The slugs and snails are epic. Have resorted to sluggo for the first time in my life. It is a terrible year for butterflies too - almost as rare as hen's teeth.