On the whole, even people with no-spray gardens prefer not to have their roses covered with fungal disease.
;-)
Sounds like bad nursery-management, and bad marketing.

Jeri

Thats exactly the point. At least when you buy it and bring it home, it should look good. It might get something later on if you don't spray but it should not start out that way. These looked awefull.

So you folks are saying that even rapid NO-SPRAY gardeners are justifiably indignant if their local garden centers DON'T spray, thereby offering for sale roses with less than pristine foliage?

Hmmm . . .

newyorkrita - EXACTLY!!! I almost posted on this exact same topic several weeks ago! I stopped by my favorite nursery, where I bought a lot of roses earlier in the year and I was shocked at the state of the roses. I didn't notice mildew but most of the stock had BS and didn't look healthy at all (NOTE: even under those circumstances, where even BS resistant varieties had it, there were two that were untouched amidst the sea of BS and these were Seafoam and Rosarium Uetersen!). I stopped by again recently and everything looked much better. They must have started spraying and they needed to - whatever your feelings on spraying are. As stated above, who wants to buy diseased stock? Heck, there's plenty of time for that to develop when you get it home :)

Lynn

LOL @ jaxondel

even rapid NO-SPRAY gardeners are justifiably indignant if their local garden centers DON'T spray,

*** Nope.
As I noted, NOT spraying doesn't mean I want to buy bad roses.

But I doubt anyone with any merchandising sense at all would offer for sale at full price cr*ppy, disease-covered roses.
Some roses mildew when they are stressed. Perhaps that is the situation here.
If I were the nurseryman, I would take the thing to my back lot, water it well, take care of it, and try to bring it back to saleable condition.

Jeri

OK, so it's a do as I say, not do as I do proposition?

I am not shocked when later in the season, if a rose has been sitting around long enought for the summer reduction of prices that it has some blackspot. Sometimes even a touch early in the season. But to see these roses at the begining of June when the potted roses come in to sell at all our local nurseries around here at full very heafty prices looking so bad was quite the surprise to me. They cost plenty and they looked absolutely horrible. This is a very well known nursery. They should know that they are not going to sell well in this condition.

We have had a very cool wet spring. Honestly, it was an education to see that those roses would not do well no spray or even some spray.

My roses here were just begining to show a touch of blackspot on some and a touch of mildew on one. I sprayed a week ago Friday for the first time this year. Very late to start. So I don't see why these should look so bad but they did.

Could it be the nurseryman hasn't a clue what powdery mildew is and could care less, hoping that those who do NOT know what it is will purchase anyway?

A few weeks back I was at a nursery whose roses had just come in. Unfortunately most of them had horrific canker but people were buying them like crazy (if memory serves a fight ensued about who claimed a Love and Peace first). IMHO the nursery should have refused the shipment, but why would they when they were flying off the shelf?

Buyer beware.

This is a nursery that carries a very large selection of potted roses each year. They always looked great before. I am certain that they well know whats wrong with the roses. Why they haven't done something about it is a mystery to me.

Rita, Have you asked the nursery staff why they choose not to spray their stock to control for diseases? They've got to be every bit as aware as their customers are of the unsightly mess that they're offering for sale.

Since, as you say, they carry a very large selection of roses each year, it would seem that they would have a vested interest in maintaining their stock in a condition that would appeal to the rose-buying public. I would be very interested in knowing why they opt not to protect their inventory/investment.

Or suggest to them that, since the roses they are stocking appear to have problems without a heroic spray program, they might make a better job of selecting cultivars to offer.

If they select roses that don't mildew like a snowstorm, they're much less likely to be faced with this dilemma.
Moreover, the customer is afforded the opportunity to purchase resistant roses.

Jeri

As I stated earlier, for the nursery that I am referring to, even the BS resistant varieties had lost a great deal of foliage and looked sickly. (And that included every Earth Kind variety - except Sea Foam - that they carry) The problem is that they are all crammed in at close quarters.....how can they not get disease? I almost did suggest to them that they get out the sprayer before they were left with nothing but sticks in pots but thought surely they know what they are doing (right?). It's just bad climate here for roses under the best of circumstances and when the plants are crammed and stressed - well, be prepared to either get out the toxic spray (which I do occasionally) or live with no foliage.

The Knockouts they were selling looked fine however - lol!

Lynn

I can't believe you guys buy roses from local nursery/garden centers. I've said before that there is no nursery in our area which includes SW CT and adjoining New York that I would consider buying roses from. First of all they don't have anything I would want to buy, they don't take care of their stock and they are grossly overpriced. Potted roses are sucker plays for impulse buyers. Why would anyone want to overpay for something they don't really want and don't need. Get exactly what you want at the best price on line.

Well, Henry, when I buy a rose locally its not something I don't want, its something I do want. Need? Need is very subjective. Certainly anything I can buy potted locally is a much larger rose than ones I have bought on line.

Rosarium Uetersen is far from BS-resistant in central Florida and is long gone.

Too bad experienced nurserymen don't know their business, either in selecting and/or maintaining their stock. Granted Lowe's really isn't a nursery, but I was in there a while back, and they had carts full of goodlooking Martha Gonzales. Less than a week later in the middle of a heatwave they had carts full (well, almost) of half dead Martha Gonzales. Good thing for me, I got a $3 MG, deadheading on my way to the checkout. She's lovely today, full of buds. (At least the manager is choosing better roses.)

Sherry

Come the end of spring, roses stored in a greenhouse are gonna be getting pretty ripe for disease...

This is good for two reasons... I actually like seeing mildew on the leaves... because inevitably there will be roses there with none, and those will be the ones I buy... If they had sprayed some toxic chemicals and covered up the diseases, I would be none the wiser, thinking I was getting a great rose...

This way seems more honest in my opinion...

Secondly, if for some psychotic reason I decide to buy a rose with a disease, of course I'm going to clean it up and try my hardest to bring it back from the brink of fungal madness... ... but nah... nevermind, I'll leave that to the rose newbies who don't have a clue what they are buying...

So my vote is for nurseries and public rose gardens to NOT spray. That way I can see for myself the disease resistance and save myself a TON of money buying roses that end up getting tossed in my trash...

Just because a rose is an Earthkind in Texas... means it's an Earthkind in Texas.

So thanks to that nursery, you have now learned something important. Just because a rose has a good reputation somewhere, doesn't necessarily mean it is going to live up to that reputation everywhere.

Healthy roses is by far the best thing, but...

Roses in pots need care and if they are not watered and fertilized they suffer. The black plastic pots need to be out of the sun, in direct sun they can get very hot (potted roses are often displayed in what look like empty raised beds for this reason). Roses mildew and blackspot very easily in these conditions. Even the most resistant roses will suffer when conditions are bad enough.

Garden centers and nurseries that sell roses every year should know this.

If roses like this get better conditions they will revive their health and vigour again; and if you don't have particular problems with mildew they should be no problem to your other roses. At give-away-prices these roses are still worth a chance.

mad_gallica Earthkind roses get tested in all areas of the country. Testing which ones do well isn't limited to Texas A & M who started the whole project. Texas A & M collects research data from all kinds of climates to see how well different roses do. After review, sometimes a rose that is on the EarthKind list is removed. There are trials going on testing a long list of roses under consideration for becomming an EarthKind rose. Rarely are all 100% disease proof, but that's their goal to see which ones come closest to being maintanence free.

I had a different experience with a nursery here. Their roses were covered in aphids. I didn't buy & haven't been back since.

decobug, you beat me to it. I was at HD a couple of weeks ago on an errand and the big wad of roses in Armstrong pots not too far from the door caught my eye, drawing me over like a magnet, I had no control just to 'look'. ;-)

As you say, some had mildew and I thought to myself, "gee, good to know, glad they're not spraying". And @tao, yes, they were too crowded as they always are and the ones in the back were dry as a bone. I actually told the manager about it who sent someone to see about it. The folks that work there just don't get that you can't just give them a spray like the rest of the plants, they all need a decent drink.

In the end, I decided I 'needed' an Intrigue to replace two that finally croaked, it will go up to our mountain place where the mildew will be less and look nice with a rose of sharon, I just love it's color. I also needed a Veteran's Honor for my husband who has made a memorial for his dad with all his navy ribbons and a Cinco de Mayo which is my new favorite color splash and very smelly, too. Could I have ordered them, I guess, but I usually don't order common stuff because I don't want enough to pay for shipping.

To be successful with roses you need to be organized. Roses are a lot of work so it helps if you do it right the first time and this is most true for selection and planting. Don't start with inferior potted roses. It is far less work and more satisfactory and cheaper to plant good stock from good sources and avoid all the junk on the market. For me that is bareroots bought online (I've never bought bands). Plant them well and a year from now they will be far ahead of anything potted you might buy locally and they will have cost less and you will have had a vastly greater selection to choose from. Trust me, I have made every mistake in the book including buying impulsively many roses I didn't need, didn't really want and after a year or so wish I had never heard of. Now when I go to nurseries I don't even look at their roses. Henry

I usually buy my roses as mail order or potted as early in the season as possible. The only thing I have against potted roses is that the root often goes in circles. I loosen and spread the root the best I can, even if it sets the rose back a bit. My potted roses do just as well as bare roots. But I agree, few garden centers and nurseries water enough and the post are too small.

I must be lucky in that we have three nurseries here locally and they have a wonderful selection of roses usually. And even with the Mildew problem, it wasn't the selection I had a problem with (lots to choose from) but the condition.

Unlike Henryinct, I do like to buy both locally and on line. Sometimes I did know how really beautiful a particular rose is until I see it locally. A perfect example of this is EASY GOING that from pictures I didn't see that I would want it. But when I saw a potted one blooming I couldn't grab it to put in my cart fast enough, it was stunningly beautiful.

I personally think I have such a nice selection of roses in my garden because of the fact that I buy both locally and mail order. But everyone has different tastes. I have no old garden roses and will not be getting any. I have some HT's but find the roses I prefer are mostly floribundas and shrub roses. I like single flowered roses and roses with simple flowers. But I also love the modern roses bred to look like the old fashioned roses with the full thick flower form.

I don't think anyone should be expected to pay for a diseased rose. I don't see where it matters if you're going to bring it home to a no spray garden or not. Why would anyone in their right pay money for something that's poor quality? I think most gardeners can handle less than pristine foliage if the overall health and vigor of the plant is there. Most of the time a sick plant is ill from lack of proper care.

Incidentaly, my no spray garden is WAY healthier and more attractive than a neighbor's garden who sprays her roses constantly. No spray doesn't mean poor quality. It's the basic care you give your roses that determine whether a rose stays healthy or not, unless it happens to be a rose of poor genetics to begin with.

Samdy

did u know if sprinkle cinnamon on your roses that it will kill the fungus?

did u know if sprinkle cinnamon on your roses that it will kill the fungus?

*** Uh -- You have used this successfully?
If so, we would all love to see photos.

Jeri

Given the price of cinnamon these days, I'm more likely to spring for a container of Compass.

Sandy808, I'm kind of curious about the neighboring garden that compares unfavorably to your own. Do you and your neighbor grow the same varieties?

And regarding the CONSTANT spraying . . . Perhaps that garden compares unfavorably not because of the spray per se, but because the gardener sprays w-a-y too much, w-a-y too often.

MANY years ago I bought a Garden Party at K-Mart. It was in one of those plastic sleeves, price .98 cents, on sale. I was there buying tree peonies for $1.69, in little boxes.I still have the tree peonies and the rose. At that time, I had 6 little kids and no money to spend on such things. I think I got a good buy that day. Later on, when I had a few more bucks, I bought all my roses at Fred Edmonds in Wa.