You can just snap the spent flower off. I try not to remove leaves from young plants-- they are needed for growth.

Sounds like spider mites, you can blast the rose off with water and it will remove most of them. The water pressure should be enough that you wonder if the leaves are going to all come off, but they don't. You need to get the undersides of the leaves more than the tops. The goal is to physically knock the mites off of the leaves. Blast it every day for a few days, then you can go to every 3 days (the life cycle of spider mites). If you are trying to grow it indoors, you will likely have to keep fighting mites. Mites love indoor growing conditions. Cheers, Michelle

Rose slugs, and yes that's the cause! They can do a lot of damage. I think they go away once the weather gets really hot. On my roses I usually catch them early, then just pluck them off and squash them. They did infest one of my summer flowering plants so badly I actually had to spray the plant to get rid of them. I would just keep checking the underside of the leaves to make sure you only had one left.

Thank you everyone. I am so bummed. I have 7 roses that I cut back tonight that have it and my husband is going to rip them out of the ground tomorrow. I only have 3 roses near them that don't have it. And, 2 others further away that are safe. What a bummer. I noticed it a couple of summers ago, but I'm a busy mom of 2 and just wasn't sure what it was and just thought it was new leaf growth. If I had known, I could have probably ripped out the ones that first came down with it and saved most of my roses. Does anyone know how long I need to wait before I can plant new roses? Would it be best to wait until next Spring? The people that lived in this house before me planted these roses all so close together, so I think when I do plant new ones I am going to do less and space them out more. Thanks so much for all your help everyone! I just assumed I could spray them and they'd be ok. :(