Have a good, solid spray program and follow it to the letter.

Yes, spraying is the most important thing at this point. Get the rest of them covered immediately, even if you have to beg someone to do it for you.

This is controversial, but I would fertilize lightly again, now. You can just broadcast the 10-10-10 and water it in. My thinking is that refoliating will draw down the energy supply temporarily. The new leaves will need nutrients to help them restore the depleted carbs. You have maybe two months of growing season left, I guess. I usually fertilize once in September.

I'm not much of a believer in tonics. If you have good prairie soil and have used organic fertilizer in the past, probably quick NPK would be the most useful thing now.

BS leads to weakening the rose which makes it more difficult to survive the winter and to a general downward spiral for the rose. I think at this stage there is little that can be done because any spraying now wont really take hold for at least 4-6 weeks. BS is a symptom of damage that will continue to appear well after the spraying has begun. By the time any real improvement shows up it will be cold so everything will stop. Any new growth you may encourage from feeding will be lost. It is a sad fact but BS weakens and eventually kills roses and only timely spraying for prevention can do anything to change this.

Thank you all for the help, I sprayed the rest this morning with the bayer advanced. I also have manzate and banner maxx available. Should I continue 1x weekly with the bayer or do some other combo?

My beds are good rich black dirt, heavily ammended with well composted horse manure, I normally add large amounts as soon as the spring rains slack off - this did not happen this year unfortunately.

I have someone who will take me to the nursery later today, so i'll pick up more fert, The one i normally go to does not carry rose tone but does have plant tone and garden tone, would one of those be right again or would you recommend something else? Normally I get the 50# bag of generics but with my arm right now i'd like to sticki wioth the smaller bags that are easier to handle even if they're more expensive.

I'm thinking you're saying its too late to do the alfalfa this year because any ne w growth from it this late will just die back correct?

Thank You!!

I know I should have kept up with the roses better all year and kept spraying for the BS but the hubby is only home 2 days out of 14 and I've only just been able to get outside this week. If i need the help now i can beg from friends and i'll be able to go out and actually show them what needs to happen.

Eight weeks is probably a good guess of what I have left of growing season, If i spray regularly between now and then, and have someone rake dead leaves 1 or 2x per week do you think that it would be safe to try some cuttings of my favorites? I usually do 6-8 every winter and have good luck but always from BS free plants...

Whatever dies i can order new roses I know, and that will be some consolation but there are a few bushes that I can't get replacements for I'm sure and I really like them!

Nutrients from alfalfa would mostly not be released until next season, but the growth stimulant in alfalfa might encourage extra new basal growth that you don't want in the fall. The Espoma Tones contain alfalfa. I would choose a fast release fertilizer that would help immediately. These would be soluble manufactured fertilizers like Miracle Gro or a granular. (The Tones are great, but not ideal for this situation.)

I usually agree with Henry, but I disagree about spraying. Bayer Disease Control will stop the disease and allow the plants to refoliate, which they desperately need to do. Without it, the disease will continue to kill the new leaves as they appear. I would repeat in 7 days and then go to 10-14 day intervals. Blackspot stays active into the late fall.

Okay, i'll get one of the miracle grow type products then, or if they have a smaller bag of the 10 10 10 i usually use i'll get that. I'll have my friend drag the hoses out to the beds tonight and then give them a good soaking in first thing in the morning.

Thanks again for all of your help!

Sorry one more question, (probably a stupid one) I think my best bet is going to be to debud everything over the next 2-3 days, so the plants focus on foliage not flowers, is that right?

Yes, you will get a little more foliage a little quicker if you disbud the current set. Good thought. Then you can look forward to a late flush.

I get new leaves in a couple of weeks after spraying with fish emulsion.

I don't even have to wait a couple of weeks. I get immediate! leaf and! stem growth when I feed my roses with Gardenville Sea Tea. The first changes occurred within a day!!! I am not exaggerating. I had an awful case with my poor Frederick Mistral. It was growing in a place that had no sun, the worst possible drainage soil and ornamental plum tree roots. For over 3 whole months it was clean of any blackspot until it finally caught the dreaded bl***byucky. In addition, every time it tried to bud, the tiny buds would rot away.

Well, I transplanted into a brand new pot and put it into a sunny area, fed it sea tea, and Bam! color returned to one lifeless bud; I started getting tiny new stems right below thorns where prior there were only naked cane. Now there are bunches of large new leaves, brand new "branches", and Frederick Mistral is looking so much healthier.

Yes, I agree it's very controversial to be feeding my rose every week through the fall, but poor Frederick needs all the help he can get! He seems to be recovering so rapidly that no way am I going to stop until mid-October for him!

Blujen, I'm in your area...we've been seeing a huge problem with fungus/disease on our roses due to the unusually cool, rainy weather this year.

I tend to be the oddball, but I judge a plant as a whole- is the plant otherwise strong and healthy? Is it growing well overall, with good color and plenty of new, vigorous foliage? If so, I'd be inclined to nip off the diseased leaves and/or leave the plant alone.

But if they're really bad, then I'd suggest a regular spray program with something that specifically targets fungus (Funginex, Daconil), coupled with STRICT SANITATION. Fungus spreads via spores- remove dead/diseased leaves, apply fresh mulch (to prevent splashback from rain/water), etc.

I disbudded the four bushes in the back yard last night, fertilized them and dragged the hoses out to the beds to water this morning - BUT this morning we had a real toad strangler, not sure how much because the rain gauge overflowed!

My plan was to disbud the big beds this morning and fertilize them while watering the few in the back yard then move the hoses up front... Guess thats not going to be necessary now, I think i'll run out when there is a break in the sprinkling and feed the big beds anyhow!

I have about 60 bushes, and I would say 80% have at least 50% BS, and look to be suffering, the others have a little bs but are not suffering from it much at all. I really feel like i need to spray i've never seen this much BS before, (but i normally spray banner maxx every two weeks all year.)

I'll try to get some pics later to show you what i'm dealing with.

Thanks for all of your help!

From So. CA tonight. I didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't spray or feed... only that you really wont see any results so late in the season and that real damage has been done which it will take time to reverse. I had a broken ankle this year and couldn't get the spraying done and quite a few suffered horribly. This has never happened before and I resumed the spraying routine several months ago but for some the recovery has not been very good. I would go so far as to say that many modern roses will be ruined for the season if preventitive spraying is allowed to lapse. Now it remains to be seen how long or whether at all there will be full recovery next year. For me at least it is too late. Many of them are mere shadows of what they should be and have been other years before at this point in the season. In 4-5 weeks it will be all over. Nothing you can do now is going to rescue this year.

Yes, I dont expect pretty this year, i'm only hoping to help them enough that they won't die over the winter. Already I believe that Perfumella and American Hero at least may be goners, but i'm not throwing in the towel yet!

I understand it will probably take a couple of seasons for them to really hit their groove again, and hopefully this surgery works and I wont need another!

blujen, if the canes are still green, then they are still alive. I'm in a warmer area, but I have had years when my plants have gone through the winter starting off with not many leaves, and they have survived. So, keep up the spray program, that will be your best bet for now.

For next year, you may want to look into including a liquid seaweed preparation like Response, Neptune's Harvest Seaweed, or Gardenville Sea Tea (although, I personally don't like to use products with fish emulsion as a foliar feed, but I have no experience with Gardenville products) with your fungicide spray. I have found that including a liquid seaweed has increased the substance of the leaves and I am able to go longer between fungicide sprays when I use Response or Neptune's Harvest Seaweed (I like both of them).

And, unless you get a lot of dieback, they will be fine next season.

Diane, why don't you like fish emusion? Am I doing something wrong?

As a foliar feed, fish can burn leaves in hot weather because of the oil and salt content.

Right. So, I use it as a soil drench, but not as a foliar feed. I exhibit (or I usually exhibit), so I need to keep the leaves as blemish-free as possible. Now, some people don't have problems with using fish emulsion as a foliar feed, but I've used three different brands, including Neptune's Harvest, and all have had some burn.

I sprayed on Sunday, fertilized Monday, then it rained all day Tuesday and Wednesday, best I can tell we got well over 9 inches of rain - I should still wait the seven days to spray again shouldnt I?

blujen, if you used the Bayer Advanced Disease Control for Roses, Flowers and Shrubs, then stay on your schedule. Once the product dries on the leaves, it is effective, you don't need to reapply it sooner.

Diane is right. It was absorbed into the leaves and will still be quite effective. With this class of fungicides, spraying more often than the label says could lead to stunting of growth.

Thank you both, thats what I thought, I'll wait till Sunday!

blujen

I'm 3 hours away with you and this year as been worst year for bs that I have ever seen in the seven years I started growing roses. Normally by now I would have stop spraying for bs but not this year.

Moril - thank you, so its bad anyway not ONLY because of my neglect? that makes me feel a little better anyway. The beds are already starting to look a little better, after fertilizer and 9 inches of rain, and spray too! Lots of new leaves are coming out already, and plan to rake dead leaves out as best I can tomorrow and really clean out the beds before I spray again Sunday. Perhaps all is not yet lost!