How contagious? We don't know. Some roses like New Dawn (except in Texas) seem to get it throughout their vascular system fast. Same with some multiflora-kin roses. I have saved roses in fall with the cut off the cane procedure more often than it's worked in spring. Mites are the proven vector. Root to root graft is possible for other viruses and I have two examples of situations when RRv has probably moved from root to roots. I had one rose where a blatantly sick cane rubbed against a healthy cane. Two weeks later, after I'd taken the sick cane off, the heathly cane was looking RRv-ish and we took the whole rose out. The mites don't overwinter in the 'form' that they are in the warmer months. Jim Amrine this past winter found one form of the fructiphilus mites on (IIRC) one in four bushes infected with RRD that he examined. In previous winters he hadn't found any (that's decades of looking). Jim uses a 20x hand lens to look for them in the field, that's the lens with the very small lens. I have put sick canes on our scanner and scanned at max magnification and then used the computer to zoom in further. The mites are the size of the lowest segment of an aphids leg. 200 microns long, slightly smaller than a thrips. The mites you are looking for are on the stem, not out on the leaves (the ones that are found on leaves are a different species and apparently aren't vectors.) Buford, it's always good to hear this kind of good news. It's not an instantaneous death sentence, but this only works for we who actually look at our roses beyond their blooms.

I have 2 Banksia roses - the white and the yellow. I don't do anything special. Just water from ground level once a week when needed and throw a bit of rose food on them a couple of times a year. They definitely do not get the same treatment as my other roses and they thrive. The only gripe I have with them is they only flower for a few weeks a year, but the arch is always green and they are very easy to keep looking tidy. Regards Julia

good morning all and Happy Easter. Your input has convinced me I have Fortuniana. Despite my efforts this a.m. pics aren't better. Couldn't get close enough either to smell. I did observed that the thorns are in 2" increments and not as killer as Autumn Damask but almost as hurtful. Only the baby branches are thornless. I marked one with a string so I can tell later if it develops thorns. I had to limb it up so DH could mowe unscathed. Why isn't that the roses you don't care for are the ones that do best with neglect? Suspecting that this wasn't what I wanted, I never give it any attention but it lives on, and well, shall I say, ha. I really really wanted a b. lutea b/c yellow is DH fave color but I wont remove this one. Will just have to wait for other real estate to clear up, sigh. Thanks for your help. ETA I do have a Lady Banks on another section of garden, lovely and thornless. The two roses are different.

Hi Denise, you don't need to be so concerned about the exact time to water, it's not such an exact science. You just want to see the top one inch or so very dry, not moist. If it's dry two inches down and soil underneath is obviously moist, it's fine, just water at that time. If you water when the top half inch is dry, I don't think the plant will mind a time or three. So no worries. The point is that you don't want to overwater. Crotons don't like to dry out completely, but watering every day would probably be too much. I can't explain that comment by Exotic Angel. They grow in small pots with a peaty mix, and maybe those do dry out quickly and need watering every day. Some people buy EA plants and set them on a windowsill rather than putting in a larger pot, EA's comment may have been aimed at those folks. On your beautiful pics of those bushy crotons, the only way you can maintain that look is to keep taking tip cuttings, or pinching the tips off once they get a little tall. Taking the growing tips off forces new growth and branching lower on the plant. Russ