There are two culprits here -- 1) yes, sawfly larvae (aka rose slugs) are chewing the leaves, and will continue to munch them down until they leave the bare mid-vein, and 2) the round holes at the edges, looking like they were made with a hole-puncher, were done by leaf-cutter bees -- they don't eat the leaves, and tend to have just one period of activity when they cut foliage to line their nests. :-) ~Christopher

Yeah that sounds like a good idea Sheila...I never thought of something like that? How do those work exactly? And Seil I didn't plant in cardboard as in 'packaging the Rose came in' I mean I had moving style boxes I broke down and then I wet them down really good to put under mulch along the slope to deter weeds. I made sure to leave about 5" or so around each plant bare with a little mulch. I did however leave the soil on it when I planted, I didn't try to make bareroot? You think that could've caused it? I just want to know how to save these ...also it rained last night...not sure how hard because it ended at least an hour or two before I woke up so when I stuck finger in soil down so deep that I had no finger left! It felt pretty moist all the way down...but idk how much rain feel so idk if that could happen from the rain we just had overnight? And today has been overcast with next to no sun all day..so sun wasn't out to dry it out.

Lie others have mentioned. most Austins do tend to blow quickly, especially in the heat, even on the bush. My weather is going to be different from yours- no over wintering issues at all here, and it gets nasty hot/dry in summer. Better ones for me have been Mary Magdalene (keeps flowering, I get several flushes a year). Redoute, sport of Mary Rose ( likes it a bit cooler, and does blow a bit quicker than MM but flowers a lot). Pretty Jessica lasts well; can be a it flower shy unless she is happy (sulked a bit last year but has been blooming lots since repotting ) Tess of the D'urbervilles lasts better than some and blooms a fair bit for me too. ohh and I get some good flushes out of Prospero too. Not sure what to make of Munstead woods- it shot out a triffid like cane, last year which flowered profusely this spring, but havent had a bloom since! it does have a few autumn buds on it at present. I suspect it needs to go in the ground to do better, but I haven't got anywhere to put it really ( it wasn't supposed to get this big!) Claire Rose is supposed to be one of the longest lasting (can be used florist style apparently) but as it was a blackspotty balling mess for me, I chucked it pretty quickly. It does do well for some people tho.

Roses self protect against aphids. Title: DYNAMIC ASPECTS OF THE CHEMICAL RELATION BETWEEN THE ROSE APHID MACROSIPHUM-ROSAE AND ROSE BUDS Author: MILES P W Author affiliation: WAITE AGRIC. RES. INST., UNIV. ADELAIDE, ADELAIDE, S. AUST. Published in: Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, volumn 37, pages 129-136, (1985). Abstract: "Dynamic aspects of the chemical relation between the rose aphid [Macrosiphum rosae] and rose buds.In warm weather, M. rosae (L.) walks off buds of hybrid tea roses during a critical period coinciding with the opening of the sepals. This behavior could not be related to histologically detectable barriers to feeding, nor to changes in the water content of the tissues or in their composition with respect to total soluble carbohydrate, amino nitrogen or phenolic compounds; major changes in tissue chemistry, effected by spraying the bushes with urea, did not affect the time at which the aphids left the buds. Tissue sap expressed from stems and sepals showed a significant increase in catechin content after, rather than during, the critical period. Once expressed, however, sap from buds at the critical stage showed a sharp in vitro rise in catechin content over a few hours, up to levels approximating those against which the insects discriminated in choice tests. The insects could well be sensitive to a developing capacity of tissue to accumulated catechin, possibly in response to their feeding activity."