by the way, both bushes haven't really grown as much as some others that I have and both have shown some blooms that are small and with vegetative centers in the past month or so. I've been clipping off most blooms for a while, but sometimes I miss some.

When I look at photos like this:
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.159017
my plant's leaf growth doesn't really look open like this one does.

Here is a link that might be useful: example of WS2000 on HMF

normal.

I'm no expert, but if you're clipping off the blooms, they'll probably get pretty bushy. I don't clip off the blooms, but I also live in a whole different climate :)

It's not RRD or anything. However, the plants don't look happy and I think I see some blind shoots. The leaves are crowded because the shoots aren't growing strongly. Normal primary shoots are 3-5' long and arching, usually bearing triplet blooms. Possibly they didn't get enough water or nutrients over the summer? Also check the canes and old cane stubs for canker and other problems.

Perhaps they'll get going this fall. As I recall, my plant was 3 x 4' after 7 mos. of growing season.

I'm really not sure about much because I'm a newbie. other roses in the same area are growing more (there's a James Galway about 6 feet from it that's growing a lot)
Should I try watering it more or fertilizing it? (if so with what?)
Is this canker? if so... what do I do? I'm not sure entirely that I know proper pruning methods. Do I need a stronger clipper? do I need to put something on the cut after I make it?

rose 1
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rose 2
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Rose 2, top pic, there is a well defined canker that formed on the cut stem in the upper left quadrant. However, it left enough of a path through green bark to support the growth above. In your climate, the cankers probably formed during cool, wet winter weather and are inactive. The plant may have stopped this particular canker with an immune response to protect the channels supporting growth of the shoot above. I would not remove it now, but maybe during winter pruning. Cut at least a full inch below visible cankers and just above a latent growth bud.. You didn't cause the cankers; I don't think there is much to be done to prevent them. It is a fungus that enters through wounds and kills an area of bark. Don't use pruning paint on fresh-cut stems, it encourages canker.

About weak growth, new growth buds should swell in the upper leaf axils of every shoot within 7-14 days of pruning or deadheading, and most of the resulting shoots should grow strongly and bloom. If they don't, the plant is not getting enough water to sustain strong growth and bloom. Many western growers let roses go semi-dormant in summer to conserve water, but I think you'd want them going strong this time of year.

Have you not fertilized at all?

I fertilized when planting them, (last winter, when I first planted them) and then I wasn't sure what to do and didn't fertilize until about a month ago. Should I again?

And when you say cut off the canker in "winter"... when do you mean, like in January or something? We don't really have fully proper winter here.

In my experience, this rose hates too much hot sun. I have several and the happy one is the one that is in morning sun and afternoon shade. The miserable one is the one in full sun with reflected heat. And you in sunset 18 are getting way more heat than me in 23.

Cut off canker any time we are assured of a good long dry spell. New wounds in rainy weather means more canker. Dry weather and the wound will heal quickly and with far less chance of disease.

WS2K can be a really quirky grower the first few years. If you keep feeding and watering it generously, eventually it straightens out.

Don't feel bad, Aimee, yours looks like a million bucks compared to the one I had. I may have had a bad 'clone' but it suffered in coastal SoCal so I took it up to mtn SoCal with the other ones that suffered here. All did well except 'him' (he croaked) and not as bad but gone (sp'd), Rouge Royale. I haven't said much as most folks on this forum have a great experience with him. I hope you figure him out, but if your mileage varies don't feel bad.

Aimee,

My experience with WS2000 was that it took a few years to get with the program. One of mine was so puny in year 2 that I shovel pruned it. The I reconsidered and planted it in a better spot with more sun* and less competition. I has become a bushy, spreading monster that requires pruning 3 times each season.

*remember I'm up north in PA.

I am NOT a rose expert and live in a different climate, but my mom grows a few David Austins and they don't seem to like as much sun, as her hybrid teas. A little afternoon shade (if it's not already getting it) might make a big difference.

She grows Tamora, Gertrude Jeckyll, Heritage and Mary Rose. She's also a big believer in companion planting, so the roses are mixed in with hollyhocks, delphiniums, lavender, catmint, a few butterfly bushes and coneflowers...not to mention all the annuals. This gives them more shade when they're little and by the time the rose bands grow bigger, they're usually able to handle a little more sun...although I'd still recommend a little shade, since you're in a much warmer climate.

When rec'd, it looked really nice.
It then cooked in the hot sun, cankered following the spring freeze-thaw, kicked up its heels and croaked.
Yours is a definite credit to my retched WS2000.

Thanks you guys, this is really helpful.

So... how often should I be feeding it and with what do you recommend?

Is there some point during the year that you stop feeding for a while?

Mine gets morning sun, but it's a long bout of morning sun. It's tough to find a spot that gets more shade without getting too much shade. :\

aimeekitty, your roses would love a nice thick mulch of good quality compost. Are there deer in your neighborhood? The blackened nubs in the first shot look like deer-chewed stems.

There might be deer, I haven't seen any.

Could those just be the flowers I pinched off by hand? I don't remember.

We do have some wildlife around here, but I'm not sure exactly -what-.

I think deer and rabbits, chewing the bark.

They DO look sort of munched. :-(
In my microclimate, I've found that few Austins tolerate a lot of clipping or pruning well, and that canker looks sadly familiar.
The Austins that have succeeded here get by with very minimal cutting back, and little fertilization too.

Jeri

I don't know if you tried alfalfa stinky tea thing on them? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but I find it useful to kick some of the "do not want to grow" roses to their senses and get some canes.

No other fertilizer works that well on that particular issue (well unless you plant a thing on a pile of banana peels under the ground... then you get 3 meter canes in the first year on Constance Spray who was placed there "temporarily")...

>do I need to put something on the cut after I make it?

Yes, either Elmer's Glue or clear nail polish will help to discourage saw flies, which might like your rose. Maybe clip off the blooms, but closer to the bloom itself, not so far down the stem? That would be an effort to leave a narrower blunt stem end that's less inviting for sawflies.

Roses 1 & 2: Make sure that when you spray water on the rose, you don't water when the sun is shining directly on the leaves, and allow it enough time to dry before the sun will be out full blast. I made that mistake once when I assumed the sun was going to stay behind the clouds in midday... but it didn't. That leaf sun scald look is terribly familiar! Of course, sometimes nature will water when the clouds will suddenly disappear, but there's only so much you can do and the rose will eventually get over it.

Probably too much pruning, either by you and/or the deer/rabbits. Don't prune any more until late winter/early spring unless you really have to; the plant needs to send its strength into recovering and preparing for winter, not making the new growth that gets encouraged by pruning. If you aren't doing any pruning, you'd naturally want to have some influence on your animal friends with their shenanigans. A rabbit will eat a fairly thick stem, but probably not one quite so thick as what the photos show. You might have deer that you haven't spotted yet? Whether it's deer or rabbits, Liquid Fence might help, and some garlic clips hanging on the plant might help too. I hate to say this, but it's also possible that the sawflies themselves cut some of the canes off. That has happened here during the really bad sawfly year here in 2009. They went totally through one cane as thick as what your photo shows. If that's happening there, then Neem oil might help some. Or if it keeps up, maybe try something like Spinosad. We never got the sawfly problem fixed that year, though this year for one reason or another it is much, much better and I've only noticed one sawfly.

Rose 2: You might try setting up a table or chair nearby on the south side to block a small fraction of the total of direct sunlight for a few weeks, just to get an idea of whether a spot with more shade might work better. It certainly does look like a plant getting too much direct sunlight.

Your rose might have the kind of mild mildew problem a rose under stress will tend to show. Anyway, when you water, spray the stems and leaves hard with a hose to hose off any mildew from different angles. It's a good idea to keep doing the hose-off thing, but after a couple of weeks, it's overall much less of a problem. We've had no noticeable problems with mildew since starting with that hard-spray approach. I definitely do recall some mildewy stems on the roses here that suffered from leaf scald.

Go easy on growth promoters this time of year, but organics don't break down very quickly so they ought to be okay. I'd suggest organics only for feeding the plant. If it's already stressed from too much sun/burning wet leaves in the sun, it would probably be less risky to use organics, which work well anyway in most any situation. You don't have to make it into a tea, though; it's absorbed more quickly, probably more quickly than you'd want at this time of the year. You can just throw out some alfalfa or cottonseed meal and banana skins and throw a nice thick pine bark mulch on top. The first two will promote growth and the banana skins will help overall health and promote blooming. If you can locate oak leaves or leaf mold anywhere, a lot of those things incorporated into the soil works nicely too. Around February would be great for lots more organic nutrients too, and several times more next spring and summer.

Best wishes,
Mary

Mary,
Are you certain it was sawflies? The larva eat leaves instead of canes, and the damage appears as skeletonized leaves instead of chew marks on canes. Mature sawflies are very tiny wasps, and I don't believe wasps attack rose foliage.
---Laura

>Are you certain it was sawflies? The larva eat leaves instead of canes, and the damage appears as skeletonized leaves instead of chew marks on canes. Mature sawflies are very tiny wasps, and I don't believe wasps attack rose foliage.

Hi Laura,

Sort of certain??? :)

That was a best guess based on the medium-sized green larvae I saw everywhere and that were causing much rose damage here in 2009. This was damage that someone who is an expert at the Beales' forum (an employee at the Beales' nursery) suggested looked like sawfly damage. My own guess was also based on looking up sawflies in some rose books. I don't think that I'd read anywhere that sawfly larvae won't attack canes, so that's the way I've been thinking of it for some time now. Last year we had a ton of chew marks on canes, as well as a ton of blackened stems, which I thought I'd read was canker caused by the sawflies laying eggs in the canes, either through openings they create by chewing into the canes or by taking advantage of the exposed cut ends of canes. This happened in an area where the rabbits has no access, so it was some insect that was causing the problem.

I don't think I've seen any of those chewed cane areas or blackened stems this year. I'm not going to research all that again now, but if you're certain that sawfly larvae can't do any cane chewing, it's a puzzle that for sure I saw the very same kind of larva insect, whatever it's correct name, chewing on a cane--in the active act of cutting into a cane on one rose plant where it left the entire top of the cane hanging down toward the ground, hanging on by the barest of threads. I remember seeing it as it did that work, and then intending to go into the house to get some stuff to use on the rose... and got busy right away with something once back in the house. By the time I got back out with my gardening stuff, the rose's cane had already been severed! I suppose the damage could have been caused by some other kind of green larva that looks just like the sawfly larvae that were covering the rose the Beales' expert commented on? (He saw the damage, not the actual larvae. After his comment, I looked closer and saw the same kind of green larvae, and also enlarged digital photos to see them all over the rose.) I am certain that these larvae--whatever the proper name that identifies them--do cut into rose stems, though I don't have a good way of knowing that the larvae I've observed are actually the same insect that can be identified easily as sawflies when they reach adult maturity.

I have also seen the flying mature sawflies (I'm certain of that, because I recognized the pictures posted online and in books), but mostly I have seen a green insect larvae--seen them climbing on canes everywhere and all over the undersides of leaves too.

We do also have caterpillers, but they are much larger than the green larvae I'm referring to, and they have noticeable feet. If the larva that cuts stems off/eats leaves also has some feet, they are nothing very noticeable, because I never noticed any. We had a problem with caterpillers and grasshoppers this year, but last year it was sawflies and Japanese beetles.

I consulted a good many rose and gardening books here last year in researching the problem, and what I kept reading seemed to confirm that sawfly diagnosis of what it was, so I'm really surprised now to find that all that is wrong. What would you guess the green cane/leaf eating larvae here are? If you're right, whatever those larvae were, that might explain the lack of a worry this year with those same kinds of larvae. That is, perhaps spraying the yard with the nematodes that can handle many chewing insects--but are ineffective against sawflies--helped this year with what was otherwise a huge problem last year?

Thanks for your information, Laura!

Best wishes,
Mary

P.S. I forgot to say, last year we had a problem with plain eaten leaves and with skeletonized eaten leaves, both. This year it's just plainly eaten leaves, which the caterpillers are plenty good at producing. I may have seen some skeletonized leaves this year, but offhand, can't recall any.

Mary,
I've been pretty lucky; all I usually have are sawfly larva and JB's later on. The rose slugs are at their worst at the very beginning of summer, before I have large mantises or other predator insects to help control them. I lose a lot of leaves in early May.

This was my first year of not using any insecticides, so I've done a lot of observing....and obsessing. The slugs/larva come in cycles, and I'll usually get about 5 cycles per growing season. They get less and less numerous throughout summer, and I've found that squishing works the best. I've found the slugs only on the underside of leaves. I would assume (without any scientific evidence) that as a type of slug they'd have to reside on the undersides of leaves; other slugs like this dry up if they stay in sunlight. I've never observed them on canes where I live, but I suppose things can always be different given our geographic diversity.

I read a ton about these little turkeys earlier this year. I went back over some of the websites & couldn't find anything from U.S.-based sites about cane damage. However, I just looked at a site for a university in Ontario, and it describes a couple of other types of rose slugs/sawfly that DO in fact bore into canes. Apparently there are many, many types of these and their egg-laying habits are quite diverse.

So....it very well could be sawflies! Ewwww....this whole thread is starting to make my skin crawl. I think I'm done looking at bugs online for a night!
---Laura

well... I'm -pretty sure- that the points that have blackened are just the original pruning from DA when they sent me the rose as a bareroot.

otherwise, I might have pruned them a bit when I first got them (someone here said I should...?) but that was like in January... not since then. I haven't noticed any canes being shortened by something eating it, I don't think so anyway. I'm out there a fair amount, so I think I'd notice a shortening.

We do definitely have some munchers, but they seem to stick to rose blooms and violas...? (maybe some bulb eating)

I'm going to augment my fence today. Loosing my whole thing of violas was the last straw for me.

so... I'm confused though, NOW, what do I do for these two roses? A couple months ago I put out alfalfa and grow plus.

Should I do that again? or would that stress them out?

After I finish planting and cleaning up for this fall, unless you guys say otherwise, my plan was to put a layer of manure down and cover that in mulch.