Thank all of you so much for this thread, and especially hoovb for providing more info! In reading this I just realized that I have DM in my garden. We are cool and very wet all WInter, as it is our rainy season. So, I guess it is not a surprise. Are some cultivars of roses more susceptible than others? I have seen these spots on roses from time to time, but nothing much else happened. However, I now realize in retrospect that this must be the disease that killed not one, not two, but three very large mature bushes of 'Le Vesuve' (including one that was almost 100 years old) in my garden. All of the descriptions are spot on, especially the speed of the progress of it, and that it starts at the tips of canes and works its way down to the roots. The last LV that it killed was only about 8 years old. We noticed that the top & edges of it were dying, and I cut off all of the canes below the bad parts, to no avail as it turned out - the entire thing was dead dead within a few days. I had sprayed it with Funginex and the Bayer fungicide product, which one of the articles I found said will do nothing for DM, and they did nothing. So, luckily I have a 2 year old healthy, clean 'Le Vesuve" (which I had rooted from the old ones) in a pot in the other end of the garden. I was planning on planting it where the last one died (I had already planted 3 other roses where the first 2 LVs had grown, and this morning I noticed that one of them, Lady Hillingdon, appears to have DM too). So, I will now try and root new plants from my last remaining Le Vesuve prior to planting it in the garden, and I will get some horrible poisons as recommended, and spray the little Lady Hillingdon and the roses around it. The articles said to cut an infected plant way back after conditions have improved, but here the temps will not be over 80 degrees for several months, and we have at least 3 more months to go in our rainy season. So, is there anything else I should be doing, other than normal pruning and care of the rest of my roses? The articles I read implied that DM does not necessarily or usually kill rose bushes, but it sure killed all 3 of my Le Vesuves quite promptly. A heart breaker, as you can see from this pic - it is of what turned out to be the two, not one, original bush (when we dug it up because it was dead, we found that one half of it was a new bush - it had tip rooted itself at some time in the past - the cane linking the two bushes was still intact). Jackie

Audrey - be sure to let MIP build up well before you prune the laterals back to about 3 - leaves/eyes. That will produce new blooming laterals. It can become a huge rose - but I like to train it more - twisting the long canes around the about 24 inch in diameter metal support. It makes it produce many more blooming laterals - traning it this way. Growing naturally it will produce a big mound and it can send out 10 feet canes - first year these will only bloom at the tips - but next they will produce many blooming laterals/sideshoots. This is why I think that growing this rose with some kind of support - like training the long shoots horizontally on a trellis/fence/arbor produces the best results. Most freestanding MIPs I have seen look messy - huge thorny canes whipping all over - or the flowers are so high up that we can't smell them. The picture is 2 year old (plant 5 year old) and it only had a little mildew/very little rust at the time(I just sprayed and removed the infected leaves - and the summer pruning together with spraying kept it pretty clean. This year it has more rust and after picking the infected leaves/spraying it has lost about 20-25 percent of the leaves but looks pretty good now. Later in the season it also gets a little blackspot - but mildew and rust are worst here. So it is not an easy rose - but for those who are willing to put up with this work/care/spraying - they can choose if they think it is worth it. I love ultra fragrant roses - and will not live without it. I hope Nadia is up for a challenge. If all roses were this much work - I would not have time to grow many.

The spots pictured could be nascent canker, but are probably something else. Older rose canes change color in spring, and in the process often look specked and splotchy. Also blackspot fungus can make red spots on the bark--it's the main way that BS overwinters. (The spots do not damage the cane, but generate spores that will splash up to infect the leaves in spring. For this reason, severe pruning will delay the onset of blackspot for a few weeks.) There are probably many causes of red spots. True cankers may start with such spots, but develop into larger areas of dead bark, black or brown, usually with concentric zoning of two colors. Do an images search for rose stem canker. There are several kinds. Spores of fungal diseases are ALWAYS present in a rose garden, so sanitation efforts have limited value. It's possible to do a lot of damage with the pruning shears in a panicky attempt to prevent the spread of imaginary disease or a futile attempt to prevent the spread of a real one. (Fungal diseases take hold and spread mainly on account of very particular weather conditions.) I never prune out healthy wood because of red spots, and my roses have done well for decades. I don't prune out every actual canker, either. The rose's immune system will usually contain the canker until it becomes inactive. A rule of thumb you'll find in older rose books is to prune if the canker has girdled half the circumference of the stem.

You'll get answers if you post in the garden clinic forum or houseplant forum.