Thank you all for your responses, especially to Jim for helping out. I also sent a picture to our local Agricultural extension office. They forwarded it to the plant pathology department at Kansas State University and this was the response from the plant pathologist "My first thought is physiological since all of the spots are clustered along the margins. Diseases tend to be more scattered. Another vague thought would be a Cercospora leaf spot. I tend to see it on roses in wet years. It is pretty minor. It has a light colored center with a reddish purple border. The symptoms here look similar but I still don't think the pattern fits because it is usually more scattered. At this late in the season I wouldn't recommend any control measures and next year it likely won't be a problem if it is drier and warmer". The county extension agent said "Most likely non disease. I think it looks like a scorch symptom from a spray. Often the oil carriers in pest control products can cause a burn like this if used above label rate or when temperatures are too high". Once again thanks to all. This is a great forum!

I just saw ICY DRIFT for the first time, just now. YOWZA! Not a bloom in sight, yet, but who cares! The foliage is GORGEOUS!!!!! A bright, happy yellow-green, and so packed with tiny leaves you couldn't see the canes. Icy Drift was in the same section with all the other groundcover roses at Madison (Mississippi) Garden Center, and there was no comparison. If the foliage stays anywhere near that nice, Icy Drift is up there with Mermaid and New Dawn as one of the greatest of the greats. I'd love to know how it looks after a year or two. I HAVE grown Peach Drift, when we lived in Madison before, and it seemed happier in the pots than once I (finally, after years of procrastination) got it into the ground. Still, they persist after seven years, being given sporadic care by the busy young surgeons who bought the house. We stopped by last week, before closing on our new Mississippi home, and the Peach Drifts I planted were looking happy - already leafed-out, with bronzy/maroon new growth: still small, though. Their new owners like them pretty well. Peach Drift continually sends up short blooming canes with showy clusters, in a delectable color range: basically, all the colors you'd see on ripening peaches. Once they start blooming, they continue up to the first frost. The ones I planted never attained the 'three-high/four-wide mound' size/shape I'd hoped for. But that may be my lack of soil amendment, or shortcomings in subsequent care. In Mississippi at least, Peach Drift tolerates a good bit of shade, and keeps right on blooming. Does not defoliate in the dead of Summer, and is semi-evergreen in Winter. I'm hoping Icy Drift will do the same. Has anyone down South grown Icy Drift for a few years? I'm tempted to send the truck by, to pick up every one the Garden Center has. But I'd like to know how the plant evolves over time. I'm thinking of planting a drift of Icy Drift beneath the sunny side of a clump of 'Shoal Creek' Vitex Agnus Castus (thank heavens the estate's last owners compiled a comprehensive set of books on the plantings... and the soil amendments... and the locations of the French drains: so I know exactly which cultivars I have of EVERYTHING, down to the Green Mountain Boxwoods). Anyway, I find blue to be cold and disturbing as a flower color, and white blossoms would be too cold, without the yellow-green foliage I saw today on Icy Drift. Can anyone tell me if the foliage continues to lean toward 'Lime', rather than maturing to a straight-up standard green?

Thank you all for your responses, especially to Jim for helping out. I also sent a picture to our local Agricultural extension office. They forwarded it to the plant pathology department at Kansas State University and this was the response from the plant pathologist "My first thought is physiological since all of the spots are clustered along the margins. Diseases tend to be more scattered. Another vague thought would be a Cercospora leaf spot. I tend to see it on roses in wet years. It is pretty minor. It has a light colored center with a reddish purple border. The symptoms here look similar but I still don't think the pattern fits because it is usually more scattered. At this late in the season I wouldn't recommend any control measures and next year it likely won't be a problem if it is drier and warmer". The county extension agent said "Most likely non disease. I think it looks like a scorch symptom from a spray. Often the oil carriers in pest control products can cause a burn like this if used above label rate or when temperatures are too high". Once again thanks to all. This is a great forum!

There are two different things. The leaves with dark spots have a fungus disease, probably cercospora spot. This is usually not very aggressive. I would just pick off the spotted leaves and wait for the weather to change. The general paling to yellow-green could be from too much water or too little nitrogen or some other nutritional issue.. When you bring questions here, please tell us where you live. Also a sharp closeup of a spotted leaf and a pale leaf might help someone improve on my guesswork.