Allison, The main problem is the beetles. They arrived last year and I was hoping it was a one time thing but they are back again. Not JBs, though there are a few of JBs out there and I can only imagine what the future is going to be like once the JB population gets established. These are a different kind of beetle, but very destructive to rose blooms. I'm not going to spray any kind of insecticide because of the bee problems. I've definately noticed about a hundred fold less bees this year than usual and I would hate to kill the 1 or 2 that are out there in my yard. A 2nd problem is water. I have a well and there isn't enough water in there for all of these roses. The last 2 years my well has gone dry for long periods. I've just put in a 2nd rose garden so that means more water that I need and it just isn't there. A 3rd problem is that since my sinus surgery in December my sense of smell comes and goes. And what good are roses if you can't smell them? Might as well have a salvia garden or something that requires less care and less water. I do have the Marie Legonde cuttings you sent me under the misting system and she's still green so far. If this one roots it will have a place in my garden, don't worry about that! But I've got around 140 roses in the ground and 30 or more in pots waiting for fall. And with all of these problems I just don't know if I want to get any more roses. This coming summer I'm going to make a list of which roses get to stay and which ones get the boot and I'm going to be vicious. Carrie

I'm not planning on replanting in that spot (I think the air currents make it too likely anything I replant there will also succumb to RRD). Right now it is just an ivy covered wall, with evergreens, other shrubs and landscape roses in the bed. But you're right I never have rounded up before, just cut back and dug up. I've also never dealt with a rose this large before. Maybe you're right and I should just take a wait and see attitude and take out anything that emerges with signs of disease as it appears. I just wasn't sure whether the major point of spreading infection was the canes or whether once the main plant was gone the mites/virus would leave that plant and go looking for new plants to infect. Creeps me out keeping an RRD plant in the garden, but seems back breaking to think about exhuming it.

I've taken an interest in learning about Florida gardening because I plan to move down there eventually. What I've read again and again about discouraging nematodes is to maintain a heavy layer of organic mulch. This will eventually break down and improve your soil. Some people mix in cheap clay kitty litter to make their soil heavier. Another possibility is to heavily underplant roses with Marigolds. There is one seed strain of French Marigolds in particular which tested as being very effective at deterring root-knot nematodes -- Tagetes patula 'Ground Control' (aka 'Single Gold'). The one caveat is that the effects won't be seen until the following year, and to maintain the effect, you'll want to replant them every year. As far as planting too deep -- I think many here would say I am guilty of this, but there hasn't been any negative effect which I can see. When I was putting this garden together, I planted my roses (own-root bands that were grown-on in pots for a few months) directly into the native soil in late Summer 2013. Prior to planting them, I had laid down sheets of cardboard to smother weeds and grass, and covered that with trimmings from a tree I was cutting back. This accumulated to about three inches, but it was a very "airy" three inches. Over all that, I put down an additional 6-8" of "proper" mulch (partially composted shredded wood chips). At first, I made concave "dishes" around each rose to allow water to be directed towards their roots and keep mulch away from the canes as I kept reading I was supposed to do, but after the first Winter, the beds were pretty much leveled out. In Spring, I worked an additional 2" of composted manure into that layer of mulch. This meant that what was once the border between canes and roots was now about 8-10" below the surface. Why did I do this? I wanted to give the roses an "early start" on having deep roots for getting water, and anticipated that canes buried beneath the mulch line would eventually root further up, allowing for easier access to fertilizer applied at the surface. Companion perennials were planted directly into this "mulch/compost" layer in Spring 2014, and they grew like gangbusters in their first year. Last Autumn, I wanted to continue adding organic matter to the beds, so I "harvested" fallen tree leaves and spread them to a "fluffy" three inches thick. I also started collecting used coffee grounds from Starbucks -- one 13gal kitchen garbage can-full per day -- and spread this about 2-3" over the leaves. It took about three months to complete. Winter snow has packed this down a bit, and the previous year's additions have started breaking down, so where I'm at now is about where I was after the first layer of mulch -- about 6-8" above the original soil line. This week, I started some early pruning. While there is some snow still remaining in half of the garden, where it is gone there was already life in the top layer of coffee grounds and leaves -- various soil critters are waking up and finding lots of food waiting for them. I've noticed some freeze damage (naturally) on some rose canes, but nothing soft and mushy which would indicate "cane rot". True, this could emerge later in the season, but I also never saw it last Spring when the roses' canes were also buried to about the same level. Why is this not harming my roses? Perhaps because what's covering the canes is actively being broken down by the various organisms in the soil, and that process is different than simply being a blanket of "wet" around the rose canes. Worms and critters keep moving the material around, and fungi digesting the material are sopping up the extra moisture. I don't know for sure -- all I can say is that I don't see any negative effects. :-) ~Christopher

I'll use the two-shovel method. When I'm replanting the roses in their new locations, should the bud unions be above, below or at the soil level? (The bud unions of some of the roses were below the soil level when I dug them out of the ground and some of the roses have growth from the Dr. Huey rootstocks).