What does the foliage look like? What sort of "white fungus"??? Powdery mildew??? How old were the plants? What roses were they? Where are you located? Jeri Coastal Ventura Co., SoCal

Jim, I don't think American Pillar would die from too little water. My garden has been in drought for the past two years. I have two large American Pillars. One is along a fence line and only gets rainwater. The other is in a potentially worse situation; it grows at the base of a mature walnut and up into that walnut about 35'. That walnut takes up available moisture. Last summer my place was in the exceptional drought catagory from July through October. Both American Pillars came through last summer with no cane loss. Verticillium wilt can kill roses quickly. If the rose appears not to have rotted in place (and that would bring in a whole lot of different saprophytic fungi), if I were you, I'd contact Cornell and ask if they could check for fungal or bacterial problems on both roots and stems.

I had the same thing happen to a couple of my rose bushes last summer. Still have no idea what caused it, but the seemingly perfectly healthy bushes died, one branch at a time until the entire plant was dead. I too assumed it must be some kind of rot or infection, but never found anything abnormal in the wood--other then the browness spreading down the cane. I replaced the bushes this spring. The new bushes are thriving and healthy. I speculated that after a bad drought one summer, I got in the habit of over-watering the following summer in compensation and that maybe the over-watering caused the problem--but I don't really know if any of that is relevant. Best I can advise for now is to cut those canes turning brown down all the way to the base, even if the bottom half of the cane is still green. And take care not to overwater. But I have no idea if that will help or not except to say that I tried that late last summer on a David Austin rose that had been growing beautifully for 5-6 years in my garden when it suddenly started showing the symptoms you mention. This year that DA rose is still alive and is bursting out in buds right now--although it is not the most robust looking rose I've ever seen--but we had that brutal winter, so I'm not sure how much of its less than optimum vigor is due to a hard winter and how much is left-over damage from last summer. But it is alive and looking healthy and getting ready to put out a good set of blooms--so let's all cross our fingers and think good wishes for my DA rose. : ) And for yours also. Kate

Kim, Cynthia, Nik, Kippy, Lyn, and Anne, thanks for all the comments on watering and irrigation woes. I feel well supported! It is good to know that others have gone through the same thing and come through successfully -- or did not, and have good advice to offer. Sammy, Buford, Jackie, and FloridaRose, if you are reading this, now you know it is a drought issue combined with gardener error. I'd rather have it be that, because there is something I can do, at least about the gardener error part. And Jackie, I checked the rose you gave me. It was in a different area but it, too, seemed to need more water. I have fixed that. Jeri, I had temporarily gotten rid of the gophers inside the fence and was dealing instead with ground squirrels. I see that at least one gopher is now back, but not near the affected roses. Now I have ground squirrels and gophers. Sigh. We need a new dog. Well, we are planning to get one this fall. I will leave the ribes in place until fall brings rain. I hope it brings rain! However, I did have a ribes die on me last year in an earlier round of native shrub planting. The replacement did fine, but the two more I added do not look good at all. The Las Pilitas website is a favorite of mine, too. I have bought a number of plants from there, and my DH and I stopped at the nursery once and met Bert Wilson. We were sad to hear about his sudden death this past spring. Last night my knitting/quilting group came over and I enjoyed sitting down and relaxing with a completely different activity. It was very restorative. I may knit some more today. I may even read! I think the garden can get by with only brief attention from me today, perhaps an hour or two of deadheading. Rosefolly This post was edited by rosefolly on Wed, Jul 9, 14 at 11:33