My Earth Song--about 8 years old and moved at least 3 times--has RMV and has never had rust. The RMV hasn't seriously impacted my Earth Song, as far as I can tell. Here are a couple samples of its spring performance: Earth Song--bottom right corner My daughter's pic of Earth Song several years ago and in a different location: Heavily pruned Earth Song--couple years ago after winter-freeze damage due to a lot of freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw fluctuations in early spring. That is the most severe pruning I ever had to give Earth Song, but as you can see, she bounced right back and had no trouble blooming again although she was shorter than usual as a result of the heavy pruning. Earth Song close-up--from about 6-7 years ago. Another Earth Song close-up from about 7 years ago. Wish it would hold that form for longer period of time. My conclusions, based on my experience with Earth Song: 1. Earth Song is NOT a "rust-bucket" in regions where there are NOT high rust pressures--which is most of America, I believe. 2. Earth Song is a fairly heavy and willing bloomer. 3. If Earth Song suffers from late winter freeze damage, heavily prune it back to good canes (with white centers) and it will spring back willingly with abundant blooms. 4. Under normal and usual Midwestern growing conditions, Earth Song exhibits good disease resistance (including good BS resistance). 5. My pics above show what a RMV Earth Song typically looks like and how it blooms. I can't see it is suffering much from being RMV. Sorry I don't have a picture of a leaf with the zigzag marking on it, but it never occurred to me to take a picture of it. I just had to come to the defense of this good rose, given the beating it has taken on this thread. Kate

The problem might go back into the 1800's. Some obscure papers (as in newspapers) in the early 1800s advised people on how to make bigger rose blooms by exarching and endarching them into fruit tree stems. The history of viruses in fruit trees goes back a long time. IF those roses were grafted onto other plants in Rosaceae that had viruses, that would have gotten the virus into rose stocks. An additional method of tranfer would be root to root transmission, also well known in other memeber of Rosaceae. I have a book with some photographs of rose production in the early part of the 20th century. Perhaps the strangest photo shows labeled buds of seven different roses (all of them much loved OGRs) ALL BUDDED ONTO THE SAME CANE of a multiflora- talk about a way to share problems from one cultivar to another. The cryptic virus in the paper that Henry linked to is also an eyeopener. The scientists got a rose that they assumed was of seed origin with no, nada, nil chance of contact with any other roses....and it was sick with Rose Rosette....and danged if they couldn't isolate RRD from it, but got another virus, instead. And this virus came from ?????. If you are 'into' rose viruses, you also need to read the paper on Rose Spring Dwarf, which has been finally characterized AS a virus by the folks as UC Davis. Dr. Golino told me that had an extremely talented post Doc who did the work. The abstract for that is linked below. Here is a link that might be useful: RSD, a luteovirus

Yes, Strawchicago My family was sad today too:) This would have been such a necessary precident:) I manually tore some outer balled leaves from Kordes Perfecta that was balled and it opened:) You (2) are more rose enthusiastic than I. I got the EMT metal conduit to cover my peas, and now I realize I have to draw a pattern and return the metal bender bc it is not sufficient for what I need. I got 6 mil plastic and agribon was delivered today) I made an inner circle core out of hardware fabric and put a metal drain on top. Hardware fabric is a real pain to work with:) Thank goodness I was wearing long pants, that metal fabric is SO though to work with. The aeration cores make a big difference in attracting BSFL and they help SO much in heating the pile. The Urban Farmer says to accept what you have planted now is as much as you can for the winter and to protect that with plastic. He is not in favor of agribon bc he says it allow the ground to freeze. That's true:)

StillAnn, What happens if you only spray the early spring shoots of once blooming roses since they don't produce any more flowers until next spring? You may ask? Good question. All the basal growth and more laterals produced will get midged. When after the damaged growth tip becomes useless for continued growth, the rose bush will send a message to the highest up the stem bud below the midge damage to take over. The stem at this point is very thin new growth, being at the tip, and the bud that is called into action is also very small. It being nearest the tip, the rose's front line 'soldier,' so to say, proceeds as commanded by the bush to take over the critical job of producing growth to sustain the life of the bush. In no time at all, this new, weak growth produced is in turn attacked by a later generation midge! The process repeats itself again and again all summer long until first frost. Examine the new growth produced on a rose bush, especially new basal canes, that have been raved by midge all season long...it's not a pretty sight. Zig zagged weak, depleated looking canes and lateral stems everywhere. Each zig was where a midge attacked. The zag is the new growth made up the stem a few inches, and then there's another midge damaged zig....on and on up the stem to its tip...weak, misshapen growth all over the bush. That's what midge does to one time blooming roses.