The ARS is funding a three year study at the University of Tennessee. Objectives include trying to develop an ELISA test and studying the spread within garden conditions of a garden composed solely of a single cultivar (way out in the country where there are no rose gardens down wind). They have as RRD source plants severely infected plants of the same cultivar. I haven't heard the results of the first year, yet. ----------------- re R. rugosa. Early on, in the garden we followed at Lincoln Memorial University, there was also a plantings of many Pink Grootendorsts near a building that had been the Dairy. They did not get sick for several years as the modern roses planted immediately downwind of multiflora-rich field whose plants were at least 30%infected with RRD. At one time we found some strange swellings on the PG canes, and they made the rounds of a number of Plant Pathologists; no idea what their problem was, but it was just the swelling. Then five or six years in, a plant got two canes that were even more thorny, whose new growth spiraled, whose leaf margins were different and whose blooms were messed up badly. Now I wish I had made scans of the canes, but we were busy with other plases of following the disease as it spread. The problem with the declarations that certain roses don't get RRD is that no one has ever taken the spectrum of all roses species and planted them in different USDA zones and left them in high disease pressure areas for a five to seven year period. What I've seen this winter, when where I live is zone 7 low temperatures, is that the plants with RRD have grown through winter....at least the parts with RRD have. The uninfected canes have gone semidormant. There's so much that we don't know. Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Rosette E-book

The grocery store minis are regular roses but the companies that produce them just don't always bother to register them. They do list names on their web sites but they're also known for interchanging those names with several different roses. So if a place orders a gross of pink minis named Pinkie they may get any one of a half dozen different pink roses the company has available at the time to fill the order. Sometimes if the rose is very distinctive you can match them up but if it's just a pink rose you probably will never know which one it is. And you have to be sort of careful because I have gotten a couple that turned out not to be minis after all. They were small when I got them as little potted cuttings but when planted grew to be floribunda size blooms in the end.

Sorry to hear about your non rose virus problems. Wisconsin had a bulletin similar to Alabama's. See the table on page 109 in the link below for the large list of oranamental virused plants that Wisconsin found were being sold during the most recent inspection period, March 2 - June 21, 2012. Of particular interest to this forum is that they found Rose Mosaic Virus in: Coral Cove, Knock Out, Coral Drift, Miss All American, and Garden Party. What do they do if the plants tests positive? Here is a quote from the article: "To limit the spread of these destructive plant diseases to garden plants and crops, DATCP requires all virus-infected nursery stock to be removed from sale and destroyed." Wow, imagine if you were a cash starved small nursery, and the state sized your inventory of say, Knock Out. I cannot envision a better argument for dealers buying virus indexed stock. Here is a link that might be useful: Wisconsin Bulletin

Thank you for the replies! They were already outside so that's why I didn't keep them indoors. Perhaps they are going through transplant shock, it's been almost two weeks since we dug them up and replanted them. The top part of the ground is dry but deeper down it's quite cool and moist, the clay-like soil seems to hold quite a bit of moisture. It was cloudy all day yesterday so I didn't water last night (when the pictures were taken) but it's sunny again today so I'll water tonight. I believe those are old leaves on 2 and 3, only #1 had new leaves (which are now turning yellow...eep!). I can take some more close-up pictures either tonight or during the weekend, I assume by canes you mean the stems? *L* I'm sort of a novice...can you tell? No fertilizing...I will avoid the fertilizing! I wasn't going to fertilize anyway (wasn't aware that you should) but just out of curiosity and so I know for the future, why shouldn't I fertilize? And should I be picking all the dead stuff off of them to encourage new growth?