The unfortunate thing is that horse owners will not feed their horses hay that has NOT been treated with broad leaf herbicides as there are certain weeds that commonly grow in hay fields that can kill a horse. So there goes one of the best fertilizers for gardens. Here is a link that might be useful: Google search on hay treated with herbicides ....

. Rose rosette disease is a lethal disease of rose that has been seen off and on in the Evansville area for many years. Unfortunately, 2011 appears to be an "on" year. Symptoms of rose rosette disease are highly variable, depending on the species or cultivator of rose affected. Some of the more recognizable symptoms include rapid elongation of new shoots, followed by the development of clusters of small branches (a symptom known as "witches' broom"). Leaves in the witches' broom are small, distorted and often noticeably red in color. Canes often develop excessive growth of unusually soft and pliable red or green thorns, which may stiffen later. Canes also may be noticeably thicker than the parent cane from which they emerged. Flowers may be distorted with fewer petals than normal, and flower color may be abnormal. Infected rose plants often die within one to two years. Rose rosette is thought to be caused by a virus or a virus-like pathogen. It is spread by the eriophyid mite, which is the smallest of all mites commonly found in the U.S. (less than 1/100 of an inch long) and virtually impossible to identify in the garden. The wild multiflora rose is highly susceptible to this disease and, in fact, the virus was used for years as a biological control of this invasive weed. There are no pesticides that will protect a plant from a virus disease. The miticides (insecticides for mites) registered for control of spider mites do not control the eriophyid mites that transmit rose rosette disease. While some researchers have found the insecticide carbaryl (Sevin) works against these mites, it has no effect on the more common spider mite. In fact, Sevin kills off the predators that would keep spider mites under control. Once symptoms are seen in a rose bush, it is safe to assume the entire plant is infected. Therefore, the best course of action is to immediately remove infected plants. Do not put them in the compost pile, or pile them up for later burning/destruction. Bag them and place them in the trash immediately. Destroy all multiflora roses within 100 yards of your rose garden. These wild roses can serve as a source of inoculum. Although the virus doesn't live in the soil, it can survive in any rose roots left behind. I would recommend replanting the bed with anything other than roses, at least for a few years. To prevent infection of new transplants, avoid planting cultivated roses on hilltops or downwind of known multiflora rose plantings. Space plants so that canes and leaves don't touch each other. Eriophyid mites don't have wings and must crawl from plant to plant. Proper spacing makes it more difficult for the mites to move within a planting. For more information on rose disease problems, contact the Purdue Extension Service at 812-435-5287. Larry Caplan is an extension educator-horticulture with the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service, Vanderburgh County/Southwest Indiana. You can send email to him at LCaplan@purdue.edu.

I don't see the option to edit my previous post. I suspect it is bad form to post three times in a row but I have an email reply from the kind people at Mobot, new photos and have nabbed the culprit! It is NOT RRD! I thought it would be best to post a.s.a.p. in case any local folks were worrying. Email: Hello: Roses, flowers and buds, are often damaged by feeding insects. It is usually not possible to identify conclusively the responsible insect solely from feeding signs. Beetles frequently cause bud damage similar to that shown in your examples. Consider the rose curculio as a possibility. It and similar pests can be controlled by spraying with an appropriate insecticide. Thank you for visiting Gardeninghelp. Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Information (jas) So I Googled images of the rose curculio and headed outside with the camera. I took some terrible blurry photos of the tiny larva or caterpillar (not a beetle) that I found inside the 'weeping rosebud' and then clipped it off & put it in a zip-lock for better photographs. It doesn't look like anything I can find so far in my image-Googling, but here it is: The Culprit Exposed Close-up of Markings (cropped) Close-up 1 Close-up 2 Close-up Crop 2 Any idea of what this is? So far my searching returns nothing that looks at all like this and I will feel silly if it is a common and recognizable thing...

No. Dependence on that list may do harm. "Instantaneously recognizable" can't depend on those symptoms because roses react differently to RRv and symptoms change with time and exposure to (having the disesase in, and presumed titre increase) the disease. The stems and leaves are not always bright red, nor do they stay red/purple in all cultivars if they start out red. Growth may be extremely fast. Excessive thorns are not present on all infected cultivars, nor are they present on all stems. And on and on. It's a darned shame that the state extension people don't go to gardens in their own states and report what is IN their states. At one time, the extension people all reported that RRD wasn't a problem for cultivated roses. Then there was a comment unsupported by any published, juried paper, that RRD was also in the fruit trees. That, too, dropped after a year or two.