Rose Rosette Disease.
Do a search on that here.
BAD BAD BAD!!!
Do a Google Search.

It looks like this is fairly advanced -- probably beyond saving the plant.

Jeri

Yes, what Jeri said..plus, the plant should be bagged and removed immediately, root system and all.

Yes, sadly, that is rose rosette. Anntn6b is our most knowledgeable resource, and is tracking the progress of the disease. Please let us know what county in NJ your MIL lives (I already know that RRD is present in Somerset county).

Ann's e-book on RRD is linked below. Sorry, but the plant must go.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ann's RRD eBook

Hi, I'm the Ann who wrote the e-book.
And it is Rose Rosette. I've seen that particular symptoms five or six times, mostly in the past three years.
That she had cut back a sick cane and the disease came back means the sickness is in the roots. She (and you) will also have to watch the roses next to that one to make sure that the disease hasn't spread beyond that plant.
Please do share with us which county it's in. Your information will help others.

Ann

What a terrible disease. She will be heartbroken; this is a gorgeous shrub rose that is more than 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It is breathtaking in bloom.

I will pass your information on to her. She lives in Somerville (Somerset County). Thank you, Ann, for your knowledge and your dedication to documenting and tracking the disease.

PS> Ann, please feel free to use my images above for your e-book, if you are interested. If you would like the hi-res versions, email me and I will forward them to you.

Ann,
Are you collecting RRD "sightings?" Do you want to kow where/when we come across it?

Yes, I'm trying to collect what's and where's.
The other thing is to be on the watch when we encounter really infected bushes to see if some bush growing right next to them (sometimes under them) seems immune to the disease. We saw something like that in Atlanta, and I had such hopes for genetic immunity, only a year later to find that cultivar in a mass planting in WVA to have four of five bushes sick with RRD. (Same with Mermaid, since R. bracteata is said to be resistant to the mites, apparently they don't recognize the leaves as roses...and Mermaid is a close descendent with some physical similarities....well, I've got documentation of two Mermaids that caught RRD, one in east Texas, the other here in Knoxville.

Ladychroe,
Could you send the images to me at abpeck@att.net and label them RRD images from Somerset Co.? Also note to whom I should give credit.
I first saw that symptom in a photo from Jean in Nashville, then on a Multiflora in Cocke Co TN, and very recently on one of my polyanthas....and my mind's a blank right now as to the fourth...it's not common...oh, yes, it was on Fourth of July in Atlanta.
It's is sad that I can remember images of sick roses!

Ann

Ann,
I had a case at a client's last year, near Troutville, VA, Botetourt Co. A Hybrid Tea, appx 10 yrs old. Pink. No other roses nearby, tho the client did plant one (unknown but HT) 20' away, which so far is doing fine. There's a fair amount of multiflora around here, but nothing specifically on the property, which is a hobby farm.

I do have a Mermaid here at my place which I planted (before I'd come across your info) within 10' of the multiflora brambles down by my creek. We will see.

Just for your data, my only other case of RRD was an 10+ yr old Peace in Santa Fe, which I took out in 2003.

Catsrose,
That's Santa Fe NM?
Do you remember your elevation? And what wild plant community might have been nearby?
Maybe a Pawlonia or something cold hardy?

Ann

Ann,

I sent the images to the email noted above. I hope you can use them.

You say that you've seen "that particular symptom" a few other times, especially in the last three years. What is particular about it?

Shouldn't the plant be burned roots and all?
We don't have RRD here in the PNW but it may just be a matter of time.
I didn't know it was in the Southwest until this post.

Chuck I saw it on a few roses at Earlington nursery..in Renton

Ann, Santa Fe's elevation is about 7000.' The rose was in a small, enclosed backyard on an urban, blue-collar street. I have no idea where the client bought the rose or what other roses were nearby--certainly nothing wild. However, Santa Fe is nuts on Austrian Copper & Persian Yellow (both R. foedita), Harrison's Yellow and also Blaze--they are all over town. This was a rather unpleasant job, partly because the client let the dogs use the yard. Come to think of it, the rose here in VA was beside a wire fence that the dogs dug under and 'nested' against. Coincidence or a possible vector?

First,
LADYCHROE, I didn't get your email with enclosures. If you tried to send it through Gardenweb, it wouldn't go through because they have a block on any within site emails with very large files. Could you please retry to abpeck@att.net

Catsrose, the dogs aren't the likely vector, although a few people have lost gardens and they wondered if the heavy presence of birds were a reason that the disease spread so thoroughly within their large roses. So far that spread hasn't happened in my garden. There is a coincidence of the disease being by fences. If the mites drop out of air when it hits a no-flow or much slower air flow zone (as in downwind side of a snow fence where snow accumulates), the mites would hit any rose growing in that quiet air space. (This means that protected sides are not used at my house to make microclimates.)

zyperiris,
Could you tell us more about what elevation Renton is and what kind of climate they have?

Ann

Ann, I resent the photos to your att email. Sorry 'bout that.

Ann,

I posted here in 2006 pictures of some of my RRD rose bushes in Delaware County, Iowa. I ended up removing approximately 16 rose bushes. I did not know what it was and it spread to all or virtually all bushes in the rose bed and to two more rose bushes in a bed two feet separated. In 2006 I also had my first spider mite infestation in 17 years of growing roses, and the heat that summer was incredible.

I also contacted Iowa State Extension Service. They also had RRD at Reiman Gardens in Story County (Ames), Iowa in 2006 in approx 8 bushes. They told me that they did not know RRD had gotten as far north as Delaware County when I called, but the pics I shared also led them to believe it was likely RRD.

Incidentally, I care for roses in three locations separated by a mile in our town, and the bushes at the other locations never caught RRD from my gardening tools. In fact bushes in the same yard located 60 feet away never caught it. It did travel about 25 feet to a bush across the driveway from my main rose bed.

I cut one branch of something that looked like RRD out of an otherwise healthy looking bush 2 weeks ago. I didn't let the condition develop so who really knows for sure. About one month ago I cut some odd looking growth from a bush 60 feet away from where the RRD roses had been. But that rose bush was very stressed so don't know if it was an RRD precursor or just stress. Both bushes appear to be fine now. I think the heat has something to do with RRD's spread. This year has been very cool.

And to let you know I went against your advice and in April 2007 planted in the bed I had removed RRD roses from in November 2006. I have had no recurrence of RRD in that bed. It is not that I didn't trust your advice. Planting rose bushes is an addictive behavior for me. I am amazed at the difference between my mature rose bushes and immature two year fledglings.

Ann, I just read through most of your eBaook and the information there is fantastic. Thank you VERY much for putting all this hard work into it so that gardeners can catch this disease as soom as possible and hopefully keep it from spreading.

Of course, now I am nervously sitting here in the middle of the night wishing it were sunny so I could go check all my roses--call me OCD!! :)

Jennifer

You probably don't want to know that at a talk for our local Wild Ones chapter on managing invasives, they were encouraging the spread of RRD in multiflora roses. If you don't want to hear it, close your ears now! ;o)

Anyway, I was APPALLED! Even now, thinking about it, I am sick to my stomach. Publicly I would not stand up voice my disgust, because I guarantee I was in a very tiny minority among a group of strong supporters of gardening with natives. But I intend to bring it up privately wqith a few and see if I cannot get the information shared in a non-offensive manner and stepping on as few toes as possible.

Where to start?

Mark, re the replanting. If you can get all the old roots out, I now think that replanting is safe, soon. But I am increasingly worried that root-to-root transmission might take place from old sick roots left behind getting into contact with new roots. For so very long, Epstein (one of the spreaders) boasted that RRD wasn't in cultivated roses in Iowa and would not be a problem.

Greenhaven,
I would be, well not exactly pleased or eager to, but let's say more than willing to help you with any counteroffensive you'd like to mount. And I do have some info on (tah dah, sound of trumpets) native roses that are also endangered by the spread of RRD and which are of such limited scope that they could be annihilated. (I'll even look up the spelling of annihilated). I've got some stuff from the mid 1900's about wild roses not that far from Chicago that deserve to be found, propagated and preserved. But if RRD gets to them first. Not just to save cultivated roses, to to save our Nation's rose heritage. (Lots of buzz word phrases like that.)
Anyway, feel free to contact me off line.

And we saw some really large sick multiflora along I-40 in the Smokies today. It stands out in a bad way.