Definitely wait for Ann to answer. In the mean time I was about to say that I was not seeing rrd until your last two photos. That is rrd as far as I'm concerned. It does appear as thou the roses are fully infected and I'm sorry to say that I would removed the last two as soon as possible. I'm sorry that I am unable to explain what I see the way Ann can to help you understand. In my simplistic terms just about everything in those last two photos is wrong. The sepals that Anne just talked about are not right. The distance between leaf set has narrow. The leaves themselves are epastic (sp?) ect. About the only symptom left to develop are witches brooms. I'm so sorry.

Now that I have taken another look at the first photos again. Those are rrd as well.

Thanks for your response. I suspected this last year, and this year confirms it for me. I'm hesitant to replace them with another rose, because I'm afraid of this happening again. Well, I have some digging to do, a few tears to cry, and then some retail therapy to make it all better.

Regarding your observation: "Some of the growth coming off old wood is nice and green, but the new shoots coming up are keeping their red color and are thicker."

Are all of the "odd" growth coming from the ground/graft? If so, I would be suspicious of an RRV diagnosis as I would expect an RRV infection to start near the end of a normal cane and be observed first in new growth above that point.

Have you observed any mites?

Hello again, seldom does rrd strike more than one bush at a time. Most of this was likely caused by the location or the roses in front of the fence. Seems likely that rrd is somewhere upwind of your fence line. Then the mites were knock out of the air when the air flow decreased as it hits the fence. It looks a bit odd but with only a few exceptions I no longer plant roses up against anything. They still occasionally get hit out in the open but not often, I have had people ask why the rose are up so far from the house with other shorter plants in back. RRD is the answer.

It is not necessary but could I ask what state you are in. I don't mean for this to sound rude but kind of hope it's not Illinois. :-)

Henry the op's infection started on last years growth which could explain why it's so wide spread in the plant.

Patty - I'm in Nebraska.

Henry - When I whacked these down this spring, I only left maybe 3 stalks on each rose sticking up about 10 inches. The new growth coming out of these older stems seem fine. But last year, I noticed some new growth coming out from existing stems that were thick, brittle, had TONS of thorns, disfigured foliage, 1 or 2 shoots that go up at least 6 feet, and rose buds were tiny. So I decided come spring time to really whack them back, making sure to really whack back those weird looking stalks and stems, just to see if that would help. It looks like it didn't. Last year I noticed two of my roses were doing this, and now this year they're all doing this. Note: they are all planted along the same fence line, and I (stupidly) did not clean my pruners between pruning them this spring, or last year.

I'm usually the one that says to wait and see, a lot of roses have red new growth, but from what I can see that looks a lot like RRD. I would dig them out and destroy them ASAP.

Thanks, Seil. I think a year is a long enough wait. Good thing I was mentally prepared for this!

A follow up question - I have 2 Rugosa Snow Pavement roses and they are not near these infected 6 Easy Elegance High Voltage shrub roses. They are not showing any signs of RRD. Think they'll be okay? I know they're tough roses, and I'll be sure to haul the infected roses far away from the rugosas. Thanks so much everyone!

Thanks, Patty. I will be keeping a close eye on those two rugosas.

RIP :(

I'm so sorry.

"When I whacked these down this spring, I only left maybe 3 stalks on each rose sticking up about 10 inches. The new growth coming out of these older stems seem fine."

So, as I interpret this statement, last years "infected" canes are now producing normal growth. New growth from the graft looks "infected". Sorry, I cannot picture the above as RRV. You have not mentioned whether you or your neighbor(s) are using hormone type chemicals such as weed and feed that could be reaching some of the roots underground.

https://sites.google.com/site/roserosettevirus/home

Did you look for the mites?

Henry - I did not whack down the canes that produced normal growth. I only whacked down the infected canes, which only left me with about 3 canes left per bush. I can only assume these canes are just not "infected" yet, and are still behaving as normal, because last year everything grew beautifully until mid spring, when huge 6 ft canes grew out of other canes, remained red all the way up the cane, had a million thorns, disfigured leaves and stunted buds. With the way this new growth is coming from the stump, I feel like its only a matter of time. I don't think any of my neighbors use any chemicals (let alone care about their yard). I don't think I could see the mites if I tried.

Sorry, my rose growing technique seems to be different than yours. To me " I only left maybe 3 stalks on each rose sticking up about 10 inches." means that those canes were whacked.

I guess the way I worded that was confusing. I "royally whacked" everything down to the stump except for a few healthy canes that I only "regular whacked", haha.

Even if you were to look for the vector mites at this time of the years, your odds of seeing them are really slight; population counts done next 'door' to Nebraska showed almost no mites on RRD sick multiflora until late summer when populations surged in late August and September.

I agree that they are sick with RRD/RRv. Once I saw similar sick growth coming back in spring after a severe pruning in March. All the canes and leaves ....the whole new growth was reddish magenta and never changed to any shade of green. Only thing normal was the petal color on the blooms even though the sepals were red magenta.

IF we knew parentage of roses, we might be able to attach symptoms to species in parentage.

It is so interesting to see this symptom again. And I am so sorry to say that and wish that it had never happened to anyone. I have no idea why the development of the green doesn't happen sometimes. We've gotten used to that development being slow, but look at the LENGTH of those canes. WOW!

Why it's happening....I haven't seen anything in plant literature to even begin to explain it.

When you dig them out, be sure to get all the roots. Just like the topsides of the plants, the roots are going to be excessive growers.

Thank you for posting these.

Ann

I just pulled them all up out of the ground (that was a task), and what I found taking each cane down only confirmed things even more. Another thing to note - the canes were all very succulent-like, I could bend them and they would snap in half, the inside looking like the inside of an aloe leaf, and the thorns were very rubbery. Thanks again to everyone for your advice, I really appreciate it.

Thanks Ann. I'll probably pour boiling water in these holes to make sure I kill off any roots I may have missed. Luckily, it's own root, so I won't get any surprises! I don't plan on planting roses in these spots, again.

"the inside looking like the inside of an aloe leaf"

You may have just explained a cane thing that I saw and nobody could tell me why. The rose looked normal, but the pith was huge, with just a thinnest edge of xylem, phloem, growth ring, It died soon after and was in a bad place wind-wise (back before I'd started looking for anything wrong with roses down wind from infected RRD multiflora.

The rubbery thorns are something neither you nor I will ever forget.

Exactly! I should have taken a picture, but it sounds like we're thinking of the same thing.

Well, bad news. The two rugosas are infected. Not as bad of an infection, but very, very long sepals, small buds, and all the thorns are rubbery, even the thorns on the old canes that were normal have gone rubbery. I guess I'm not supposed to have roses!

I'm sorry not to see this sooner and hope I'm not to late. Do you have a photo. Pease don't remove them yet.

All of my rugosa's new growth has soft bendable thorns. They also have super sepals as in very long.