I've noticed the same thing on my roses and we haven't had much rain and have had lots of sun. I'm noticing this phenomenon much more this year than ever before.

Old leaves that are not producing enough food to earn their keep are often shed by the plant. Those inner and lower leaves are exactly the ones that the rose would shed.

Thanks, in three days time every rose bush out there dropped a handful of leaves including the minis. One or two bushes wouldn't have surprised me but I didn't know if I needed to worry when all of them were doing it. Guess I better just relax and let nature handle everything.

If you've had any kind of stressful weather that could cause it. The plant wants to shed the non-producers as quick as possible in those conditions.

It probably is black spot. They don't always have "black spots" on them. I know from experience. If they're falling off that's a good indication that's what it is.

Can 30 rose bushes all get black spot in the period of three days with absolutely not an apparent BS on any of them? Some of these are supposed to be extremely resistant to BS because they are Earth Kind roses.

I suppose it's possible. I get b/s on many of my roses in early spring. By summer it goes away. Can you take pics?

all of the offensive leaves went in the trash but if it continues to be a problem I will post pics. Thanks everyone for you help.

I'm not seeing much spotting on green leaves but still getting a lot of yellow leaves just falling off. I decided to use a fungicide in an effort to stop the process but I'm finding that 7-8 days after I spray I am once again getting yellow leaves. The directions say to spray every 10-14 days. Is there a problem with spraying every 7 days to try to arrest the BS.

I'm hopeful after the spring rainy season that it will no longer be a problem.

I've had that happen here with to much rain...

How strange to find this. I've noticed the same thing earlier this week on my Souvenir de la Malmaison. The leaves fall off and are startlingly yellow but it does not seem to be blackspot. I simply assumed that I'd put too much fertilizer on the poor things. Like Beth, I gathered up the leaves and disposed of them, but have never seen this in all my years of growing roses. Who knows what it is! It seems there is always some ailment that is disturbing to us rose growers. The plants seem fine, and are growing, blooming and budding really well. It is probably what the experts like Seil have stated.

Most of my roses started leafing out in February and then got two rude snows in March. The early leaves were damaged and got black spot. They have been turning yellow and falling off if I didn't pull them off myself.

In climates where roses carry leaves through the winter, there will be some natural shedding of senile leaves in spring. Usually when a leaf turns uniform bright yellow, or yellow mottled green, it's just because the rose has decided to kill it off. Crowded or heavily shaded leaves may be dropped in summer. I doubt you can have blackspot without black spots.