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.

along with an LSU purple and an LSU gold fig. If you want cuttings of my "New Dawn", "Gloire de Dijon", "Ballerina", or my various minis (or other stuff; some suitable for bonsai use) email me. You have to come n' get it, though (or else tempt me with a swap).

Thanks for the feedback. I have had a good look on the web and have ordered some chelated iron (which also contains magnesium) and will give them a foliar spray. It seems that the worse thing to do is to be too kind to them and fertilise them. However they can suffer from iron and it seems magnesium deficiencies. Our soil is sandy and light so it is well drained. Have bought and planted some banksias from an English nursery that specialises in them (The Old Walled Garden in Kent) and they are surviving well, although one of them is looking a little yellow (*gulp*) so I'll go down the iron/magnesium and no added fertiliser route. If this works then I'll have a go at some more seeds. The mix that I started them off in was a mixture of sand, potting compost and perlite, roughly thirds. Thanks for the help and encouragement.

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