First off my condolences to all who have lost their beloved roses to this horrific disease. I know how frustrating it is to lose our plants to any blight. I lost a 15 year old ZD to voles last year and that was bad enough but RRD is so much worse and sooo scary! I haven't seen this in my garden yet, thank God, nor have I seen evidence of it in my town of Charlton, MA. We don't really have a downtown area to speak of since the town is very rural and the few businesses that landscape use mostly shrubs, day lilies or irises so there isn't a great proliferation of Knock Out roses. We also are surrounded by deep woods and swamps so not much sunlight for Multiflora to thrive although there is quite a bit about a 1/2 mile from my house. I haven't seen any RRD on it so far.

One concern that I have though is introducing it to my garden from a contaminated purchased rose. I buy 90% of my roses mailorder from Chamblees, HR and RU and am concerned that I could possibly get a contaminated rose without realizing it. Are there any safety measures I could take to minimize the risk?

Sharon

I was at a local big store last week and saw one of the worst infected roses I've seen. It made me sad thinking all of the nearby roses most likely had it as well and just were not showing signs yet. It is really scary thinking of how badly it could spread just from those roses alone.

4 victims in my garden so far, just found a new one today - a red vigorously growing HT that I purchased "unknown" in a pot for $5 two years ago but which I am quite fond of and today is 6' tall by 4' wide. Very unhappy. Will prune out the new funky growth way down below where it starts and watch to see how further new growth looks but I doubt there will be a good ending to this story. So sorry for all our losses! And to think I just finished a pergola in my backyard with so many climbing roses planned for it. I have purchased the roses and will proceed as planned, but my backyard is very open and very windy - a nice route for that darned mite to travel, so I'm not sure of how this will go.

As of this very moment I am putting a strong stop to any more rose purchases. I can't knowingly keep making purchases, investing time, money and love into bushes only to see them succumb to death. This might be the beginning of the end of the rose industry.

No guarantee on making sure you don't bring the virus or the mites into your garden via some purchases. Those growers you listed, particularly HR, take pride and frequently tout that their roses are all OWN ROOT and VIRUS FREE but there really is no guarantee. 3 of my infected roses were grafted bareroots from questionable sources; one was an own root Pink Double Knock out. I believe the grafted ones may have come to me already infected and the Knock out may have been infected in my garden. Just my guess.

No RRD in my garden here a few miles east of Raleigh but I did spot some RRD on the multiflora growing in a gully about a mile away.

Roanoke, VA. A few years ago I said I would continue replanting roses as long as I could. I'm about to give up. I've tried moving roses to the other side of the house, but they, too, were inflected. I'm heart broken. Nothing is as beautiful as roses.

Sad to read. So far I have gaps in my garden anywhere there was an infected rose. Not replacing.

Northern portion of Dallas, TX metro area for me, and my roses have been devastated. After I finish removing the remainder of my roses from the ground, I'll only keep one rose in a container on the back patio for fragrance next to the back door, along with containers of rosemary & basil. Francis Dubreuil / Barcelona was chosen for the container for its consistent, strong fragrance, great color, small size and graceful leaves.

Small nandina's, Texas Sage, Red Yucca, New Gold Lantana and liriope are looking good to me these days, along with ornamental trees & hollies.

I like coming to this website and hearing about other people's roses, where RRD is less prevalent. Reminds me of the good old days around my place.

Randy

So heart wrecking Randy, tell me, how many roses have you lost?

RRD is here in LaSalle County, Illinois. Two roses this year. I still love my roses but I'm now planting easily replaceable varieties. I have one climber now not certain I should have planted it. The problem with climbing roses for me is two fold. They can be very large and hard to notice rrd quickly. They are also planted up against something making it easier for a mite to be knocked out of the air onto the rose.

I am so truly sorry for the lose of roses that others have experienced. I do keep in mind thou they are plants and in now way compare to the health and safety of our families.

Concerning the aspirin, hydrogen peroxide question.

Up to about 10-15 years ago, the "in thinking" was that plants did not have an immune system. Now it is accepted that they do. Research is being carried out on how to enhance a plants immune system against (in the cases of interest to this thread) viruses. Specifically, for rose rosette virus and roses the following appeared recently:

" The team is treating plants with certain compounds that will help them defend themselves better, Paret said. “We are trying to reduce the severity of the symptoms,” he said.""

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3282815/florida-rose-rosette-report?n=4

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Also, at one time the thinking was that all roses (except for a few species roses) were susceptible to rose rosette virus. Recent research indicates that that is not correct.

" A total of 564 observations representing about 400 unique cultivars or rose species were obtained. Of these, about 50 garden rose cultivars and 10 species roses showed no RRD symptom development. The other 330 cultivars/rose species showed mild to severe RRD symptoms."

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3338938/m=3/search-for-genetically-conditioned-resistance-to-rose-rosette-disease

This indicates (to me) that some (about 12 % ) of garden roses already have an effective immune response against rose rosette virus.

Since both hydrogen peroxide and salicylic acid have been shown to be immune system boosters for other viruses and other plants, I recommend that the home gardener apply one of the 2 chemicals after cutting off the infected cane to ground level (if the infection is caught before it has spread to more than one cane).

https://sites.google.com/site/roserosettevirus/

Braverichard, I've dug up about 12 roses.

And have several more that need to be dug up.

That's a lot of losses!

My garden is devastated. 80 roses gone, 9 years of loving and caring for them. I won't be replacing them.

I read about ARE this morning being for sale, I wonder if they got hit with the virus too.

80 roses! OMG ... tell me, which part of the country are you in?

Dallas Fort Worth. It's sickening.

This is so scary and sad. Again my condolences to all who have lost roses to this horrible disease.

I was considering replacing some of my poor performers, black spot prone, too large or stingy bloomers, with new roses but I'm so afraid of purchasing a virus infected rose mail order since I mainly order roses from RU, Chamblees and HR. Is there any way to protect existing roses from a possibly contaminated one as a precautionary measure? Some way to quarantine? If quarantining, how long and how? I'm just so nervous that I'll infect my healthy roses since I haven't seen any RRD in my area so far and live in a fairly isolated area.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated since I want to keep my roses healthy.

Sharon

There are surely no guarantees in life - or in rose purchasing mail order - but own root roses from those sources will most likely be virus-free for you.

thanks

My roses came from Heirloom, Chamblees, RU, David Austin and other reputable vendors. They were very healthy until RRD struck.

msjam- were any infected though? That is my concern. As far as I know there isn't any RRD in my town. We are rural and aren't densely populated. All of my roses from these companies are healthy too. I'm just concerned that they might unknowingly send an infected rose and introduce the mites into my garden. I wish there was some way to isolate the rose to see if the rose is infected. I believe Michaelg stated that in a young plant the infection would be evident in a fairly short period. It still makes me nervous though.

None of them were infected with RRD when they shipped them to me. RRD is spread through some type of mite (by wind). If your neighbor's roses have RRD, it's almost guaranteed your roses will have it too, sometime.

Thanks. That makes me feel a bit better. Luckily I have no close neighbors and am surrounded by woods. I'm looking to revamp my garden for next spring so I'll be purchasing quite a few new roses. I don't know if I'm being a bit paranoid but this is such a horrible disease with no known treatment so I'd rather be safe than sorry. No other flower can replace the beauty of a rose.

RRD/V totally wiped out Oklahoma City's public rose garden - probably 500 roses. They took out affected rose bushes and replaced them for several years before giving up. It is now one big butterfly garden, still pretty but not one rose bush. I don't know how the Tulsa Rose Garden is doing but it was in trouble a couple of years ago with many affected plants.

Rev Roses

I don't know about Oklahoma City's rose gardens, but I do know that one reason a number of public rose plantings are such disasters is because no one kept an eye on them and/or didn't know what the early symptoms of RRD are and thus did NOTHING when RRD appeared on the first rose in the group. As a result, the RRD spead to nearly all the roses (by mites blown by the wind) before anyone registered that anything was wrong.

If one tends one's roses regularly, you will probably notice quite early that there is some odd growth on ONE of the roses. And if you give yourself a kick in the rear and do something right away (rather than waiting a couple years while it spreads all over your gardens)--like cut off the branch with the odd growth and dispose of in a garbage bag (tightly tied), and let the garbage collector pick it up and dispose of it--or, if the odd growth seems rather widespread (which means you haven't been paying attention to your gardens very well or you would have noticed it sooner), dig out the whole bush and dispose of as described above. If you catch it on ONE rose and do something about it immediately, you probably won't end up with a dozen or two dozen or more cases in your garden.

I had 1 or 2 cases a year for several years--until I discovered my neighbor had RRD roses and was doing nothing about them. Once she got rid of them (at my urging), I have had NO cases of RRD in my yard for the past year and a half.

RRD really is upsetting, isn't it! Another reason to catch it early and do something right away about it.

Kate

Well I've literally done a full scout of my subdivision for RRD roses, going house to house to inform homeowners with diseased roses and to ensure the roses are removed, I've been volunteering to do it - works quite well, so far only two homes have NOT cooperated ("we'll get back to you") and I will visit them again soon. So far I've removed 26 huge, double knock out roses and very sadly, one beautiful Tropicana bush that was easily 7 feet tall by 6 feet wide, broke my heart, it was in a prime location right at the front entry of that house and was the only rose bush owned by the gardener.

Oklahoma Butterfly Garden now huh... I wonder why all the major players in rose production have just sat by for the last 10+ years as this disease just spread and spread. Don't they realize it can wipe them out? Or are we 20% of the total rose purchases? I often wonder that... if 80% or so of roses are sold to "general gardeners" who don't have many roses and just purchase a body bag or a potted rose at a big box store here and there and are ok every spring when some are dead and just buy more to replace them, then the producers won't care because they will always be selling. Those sorts of people are literally all over me, last year (I'm guessing in keeping up with me) several house in the neighborhood sported nice HTs and Grandifloras in their front yards, just about all of them died over winter (probably not hardy and definitely not protected in any way) and most of them were replaced and this year the yards look great again but I bet you come December I'll be the only one with mulch/dirt mounds on the roses in the yard. Essentially, these folks are happy growing roses as annuals.

This review article on a very similar virus suggests/indicates how difficult it may be to solve this problem.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Basavaprabhu_Patil/publication/270450110_Pigeonpea_sterility_mosaic_virus_a_legume-infecting_Emaravirus_from_South_Asia/links/55dbee5c08aed6a199ac6e36.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm0ytu-IJfC3-2AjYYmU5FcORSvhfg&nossl=1&oi=scholaralrt

I checked with some rose friends in Tulsa and its beautiful rose garden which 10 years ago had 5,000 roses is down to 1,000 all because of RRD. This is a well maintained garden with a large team of gardeners and hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources but it has not been able to defend itself.

I am in North Central Texas and last year had to rip out 10 huge knock out roses that I loved due to being diseased. I am trying to find something similar to a rose to replace the roses. I have a rock retaining wall with a ledge (roses were perfect across it) that I need to plant something. I have been told that Texas Sage is what a lot of people are buying to replace their roses, but is there anything else? I want something that blooms from spring to first freeze...

rev_roses

Can you please tell me more about the butterfly garden that was once a rose garden? Are all the roses gone now?

I'm in Northern California near the Oregon border in Siskiyou County and have lots of what may be R. woodsii, R. nutkana or mixture, or others have suggested all may be varients of the fastly evolving Rosa californica. None show any signs of RRD, thankfully.

I'm going on the 11th year of having the disease. I live in southeast Pa. I was going through all my rose notes today and see I first noted "very distorted growth" on a newly purchased rose sent from California, the rose was Hansa. I remember well that spring which was 2007, since I was putting in a new rose bed of all OGR. The disease spread of course, to many of my roses. I have at least 100. Many (all?) of the David Austin succumbed. One that has survived is a HT, Princess Monaco. I have only about 4 HT's. Now I am rethinking....such a shame and so sad. I completely sympathize with all the other posters. Praying for a cure...

A nursery from California? That surprises me. How horrible. Beautiful garden.

This subject just makes me shudder. There have been no reports in WA. At least, not yet. Same for Japanese Beetles. None yet.

There are masses of wild roses all along the roadsides where I live. They are beautiful in bloom with wild bachelor buttons, yellow daisies and white achillea. It's such a shame that a dreaded virus could, someday, be hidden within.

This crazy climate has it's own set of problems, but none as ghastly and worrisome as RRD. My heart breaks for those of you who have lost roses to this virus.

Thank you, Ann, for the work you do to keep us educated. Everyone who grows roses should read the work you have compiled on the subject and to Henry who keeps us informed of various studies.

Oh, that's not good, I thought there was no RRD in CA.

You have a beautiful garden Camieux! Love the stone wall.

I, too, dread the thought of RRD entering my garden and feel deeply for everyone who copes with it on a regular, or even irregular, basis. It's like a medieval plague for roses in the 21st century. I can imagine how those surrounded by plagues create all kinds of theories, talismans and rituals for warding off the dreaded infections. Every hint of causal connection becomes a new hypothesis. When I was in my mother's garden in Dallas, TX, I could feel the superstitions alongside desperate, wildly improbable theories welling up inside me as I struggled to determine why some roses fell and others remained. When I returned to Portland, I saw RRD in every ruffled sepal and wacky Lady Banks cane. I was a little off my rails. To date (knocking on wood, saying "bread and butter," and avoiding the ladder and black cat), no RRD in the Portland area...yet. (Throwing salt over my shoulder.)

Camieux, you are my hero and your garden photos are beyond charming! That stone wall with roses is my idea of perfection, especially when decked with Gallicas. Please continue to persevere and to inspire those of us who have been hit by the plague as well as those of us who need to see hope if we are hit in the future. Even a few roses growing as beautifully as yours would give me reason to continue in the face of viral evil!

Sheila and Summer, I agree. Not a CA nursery!?! I worry each time I order new plants...from anywhere.

Flowers, I'm just one state below and am probably keeping a vigilant (paranoid) eye on the southern end of those swathes of multiflora and other wild roses that are causing your trepidation. They look so harmless and so darn pretty in the late spring. Like pure innocence and unicorns and rainbows.

Ann TN, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Carol

The post was saying this happened from roses from California in 2007.

Eleven years ago. Yes. Hopefully not a problem now?

Camieux, did the nursery in CA ever say how the RRD entered their stock?

Carol

Swarthmore. I have lost two roses to it over the years, and have made an effort to let neighbors know when I see one of their roses infected (invariably it's been a knockout, and the gardener has planted it for ease) no one has refused to remove it once I explained the problem.

Other than the multiflora vector, I'm hoping it stops people from planting knock-outs and maybe it will be harder for RRD to spread?

RRD can happen on all roses, not just Knockouts. I hate people keep saying it was Knickouts fault. That’s a wrong statement.

I'm not saying that it is. However, it is a very common rose for people to have when they don't know a lot about gardening. And because they generally allow the rose to linger large infections of RRD can be established - and then spread. They're a reservoir for infection and disease.

It is generally Knockouts that I see, planted in great swaths at the entrances of housing developments, it's knockouts that I see planted along the roadways, it's knockouts that I see planted by my neighbors who don't know much about roses other than the idea that they'd like a blooming bush. And because these plants receive only the most basic care, it is knockouts that get "this funny growth I don't know what to do with."

Thanks for clearing up my ignorance.

Just out of curiosity and general venting of spleen, what in my statement would lead you to think I believe RRD is only spread by knockouts? Clearly, I have other roses that aren't knockouts because I am posting in an "antique rose forum" I wrote, "hoping it stops people from planting knock-outs and maybe it will be harder for RRD to spread?" which to me implies I'm referring to the ubiquitousness of KOs acting like a vector.

For the record, I wouldn't bother responding quite so harshly to an offhand comment but your comment really rubbed me the wrong way. So I hate people acting like jerks in online forums, they make wrong statements.

"Over a decade ago I predicted the problem wouldn't be solved in my lifetime. I've seen nothing to make me rethink that."

I have hope with CRISPR & The Rose Genome Sequence Initiative they will solve this problem. Roses are a big business, they're not going anywhere.

I sure hope they start with the knockout genome.

When I first noticed the odd growth on Hansa in 2007 I didn't even know about the disease. I have NO idea when or where it came from. I had ordered many roses that spring from all over (when there were so many nuseries who sold OGR), and I suspect it was from one I ordered. However I have much multiflora Rose surrounding my property, acres of open space that are farmed or left preserved and undisturbed. Now I am dealing with emerald ash borer and boxwood blight. Ugh. But roses here will begin blooming soon. Can't wait. Never give up. Thanks for your comments.

Thank you, camieux. It sounds like California is likely exonerated. Good luck with the borers and blights.

Yes, KO is a very very common rose., like a long life geranium. Your wish of stopping people from buying and planting it is not going to land anywhere down earth in your life journey. :-) I started rose gardening with 250 KOs and Carpet roses in an ice hole filled with old tree roots. Before that I have killed 100 HTs per year for a few years. I just happen to love KOs as landscaping roses, and they stay alive and bloom for me at a difficult spot, much better than evergreens. KOs are the ones walked me into the world of rose. I became a rose collector, now I have over 1000 roses under my care, old garden roses, DAs, HTs........ 5 different colors of KOs fill the garden with bright colors when Old garden roses, DAs HTs are taking a break from blooming. RRD can happen on all roses, not just KOs. KO is a great landscaping rose, it’s like a Toyota, nothing fancy but reliable, productive with very little gas.

I hope all the new rose gardener start with a KO, learn how to walk, how to take care a rose, and soon enough from the very 1st step to the path of rose wonderland, just like what I did, rose became my passion, it started with KOs. I am learning how to breed KO with old garden roses and DAs, that’s something interesting to explore on my journey.........

In my heart is always a spot for KOs........

Today, in my garden where my kitties have been buried for the past twenty years, the little seedling that could bloom joyously in both spring and fall. RRD. Double light pink, no black spot, came through winter with canes healthy to the tips. Thrives in unamended acidic red clay. Now huge and breath taking, and missing two major canes.

With the great rainfall we've had for the past two years, my big (think VWBug sized) roses along a fenceline are now gone but for two. RRD got them.

But I had such hopes for the double pink cascade. Tomorrow or sunday, I'll try to propagate, but DAMN, l didn't want to lose this one.

Ann

Oh, Ann. I would wish all your roses immunity from now until forever, especially the most treasured ones. They are much more than garden plants. The sneaky relentlessness of this contagion is enough to make a rose gardener stark raving mad! Here's hoping for our friend science to point toward a light in the tunnel and for everyone in horticultural and agricultural fields to recognize and act on this very real and voracious threat. Thank you so much for all your contributions to our learning on this forum!

Erasmus, I applaud your method and thoughts on RRD spread. I think you are spot on about vigilance. Wildfires start with a cigarette, firecracker or downed power line. Identifying and properly removing and disposing of the first spark can go a long way toward containment as we work toward eradication.

Any large monoculture planting can cause huge ecological problems, and a swathe of roses which potentially hosts RRD can become one of the ugliest of ornamental disasters! No plant is maintenance free, but installing roses--Knockouts or any other "disease resistant" variety--in an unsupervised area is especially foolhardy. The marketing implication "plant, water, whack and ignore" can produce devastating consequences for the entire community and far beyond.

Genetics may eventually unlock extremely useful information for future breeding and cultivation, but it's not going to alter the current course of this disease. Installing plantings of roses without continuous educated oversight and care is just asking for trouble. Even individual roses strung across private gardens can creat pathways of infection. Residential gardeners, along with every landscaping company and nursery, need to receive four alarm information about RRD. And then there are the unaddressed fields of "wild roses" which are not closely monitored by the highway or agricultural depts. In order to truly contain and eliminate this epidemic, we need to treat it like the plague it is. Observation, containment, elimination, eradication.

Carol

I live in SoCal. i had a beauiful iceberg hedge.

they all got RRD. i removed them( 8 years old) i waited a year and yesterday plantedTop Gun . im praying

Amy, I am holding you and your roses in my thoughts! Carol