Moses , I can totally relate to this. Last year I had some roses not need spray so I didn’t spray , that this year really do need it. Then I let my foot off the pedal as well once the heat became unbearable. Roses looked pretty good .. until they all of a sudden didn’t . Total leaf loss , some naked bottoms .. it can be so frustrating! I’ve never seen my blossomtime uglier , my soul sister is half naked .. even my pair of climbers “Renea” is making me shake my head . It is hard to have a beautiful rose garden! And nothing comes close in the plant world to my love of roses so we carry on and hope for better next spring. There’s always next year , I say every single year :)

Moses, I hate spraying, avoided it for years out of concern for bees and other pollinators, but found an organic spray this year,—3 in 1 Organocide Bee-Safe Garden Spray—so it was game on! Still hated it because I have to wait for evening shade and some of my roses get sun pretty late in the day. But it helped that this spray can be used up to thirty days after mixing it, so I could mix it ahead and then use it the first time I thought I would have at least 12 hours without rain. I sprayed four times, May and June, and two of those times the rain came earlier than expected and washed everything off. Still, the roses did very well. I've cut down from 34 to 26, which helps, and I have been getting the fragrant roses that are more black spot resistant for several years now, which also helps. Despite our record rains, none of my roses became nearly as defoliated this year. I think I would do better to spray in April before first blooms, and to spray through July. I was just so disgusted with the amount of rain we got I quit. My problem now is getting a rose that is advertised as disease resistant AND exceptionally fragrant (David Austin's Lady Gardener, for example) only to find that while it is a very healthy rose it has hardly any fragrance at all. Nor is it remotely an apricot rose as the photos show it to be. I'm now back to only buying roses from Pat and Bill down at Roses Unlimited or from people in the local rose club who will straight up tell me if a rose is prone to bs and whether it is fragrant or not before I order it.

Same here in NY and PA. I didn’t spray for BS this year, was too busy this summer. Maybe next year I will get BS & midge under control. Still seeing JBs a couple days ago, this year was a very bad year for midge.

Moses

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself , roses are forgiving and even if they don't survive then you can shop for new ones ! It is hard to spray/work when the weather is really hot . My roses had so much BS last summer that I was crying when I was trimming them after coming back from a 3 week vacation . in fact they had chilli thrips too . But I trimmed them back and gave them Alfalfa tea and mulched them with horse manure . in the spring after pruning , the first flush was spectacular and the leaves were so healthy even my neighbors noticed .

Pam, ttthanks for the recommendation for the organic spray. .There were times when I went out in the dark to spray so I wouldn't get the bees.

If you hear a report of me tripping and breaking a hip, it was probably because I tripped over my feet in the dark trying to spray roses.

My new motto,

Break a hip, save a

3 in 1 Organocide Bee-Safe Garden Spray is ready to use spray. It would be pretty expensive to use if you have hundreds of roses. It’s oil based, so don’t spray it when the temp is high.

If I might ask, what are the ingredients in this Organo spray? You wouldn't believe how bad my leaf spots are after Hurricanes Gorden and Florence!! I even sprayed with Daconil and I honestly believe it made it worse. Even the ADRs! I know that shouldn't be possible but I sprayed a few that probably didn't need spraying and they turned yellow blotched/spotted immediately!

Thinking of growing spirea, hydrangeas!!! Get a grip man! Change your weed type but don't even consider those UGY shrubs. We need your words of rose wisdom. I for one do not want to hear anything about your beep beep hydrangeas when you grow them! Only your roses.

Hang in there Moses! I remember growing a couple spireas once, our cat would lay in them and flatten to the ground quite often ...Since I hate the flat look I removed...lol

I tried to grow a ALL Summer Beauty hydrangea once but after waiting 4 years for blooms I kinda gave up...They should of called it "No Summer Beauty"... lol.... But I did plant two Bloomstruck hydrangea this year to try again...lol

Did you get alot of rain this year Moses? We got/ are getting a ton of rain in our part of PA esp this year so was wondering... That doesn't help matters with plants...

What do you spray with?

Moses, I agree with oldrosarian, you are our mentor, our guide in all things roses, not hydrangeas. We need your expertise and rose wisdom.

Next year will be better.

Thank you all. Your encouragement means more to me than you know. I pulled out the sprayer yesterday and gave the roses a good one, pretty much keeping on schedule for a month now, and the effects of that mid-Summer lapse are less apparent.

Please let me respond (in reverse order), to your much appreciated comments:

Kristine, I have a soft spot for hydrangeas and spireas, especially in light the recent explosion of new, compact varieties available, but fear not, I will be content to enjoy them in other folks' gardens, not in mine.

Jorge, I use the Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer at 1 tbl./gal., along with, mixed in the same gallon, Bayer Advanced Disease Control for Roses, Flowers, and Shrubs Concentrate, at 1 1/2 tbl./gal. The two chemicals are very compatible. They control the: rose midge fly (absolutely the WORST of my insect pests....all others pale by comparison), and black spot (Cercospora, downy mildew, and powdery mildew are minor diseases here.

Rust is almost non-existent here.)

I normally (with lapses, of course), spray weekly to every 2 weeks, depending on the need, pressure at the time, from spring, 2" of growth, 'til heavy frost, usually late October.

Jim, your enthusiasm could make a dead man sit up and sing the National Anthem with a smile on his face! Thanks for your jump-start! Everyone around me got plenty of rain, but the rain clouds went North to Cook Forest or South to WV, skipping my locale, so summer was hot and dry here, the 'Perfect Storm,' for black spot and spider mites! Then comes my spraying lapse, and 'Voila,' defoliation galore. That's behind me now, and easier to keep forward thinking thanks to your words.

Hydrangea All Summer Beauty has its problems, as does Endless Summer. All Macrophylla hydrangeas are still bud damagable in zone 6 or farther north regardless of the new variety and its marketing hype. Stick with the Arborescens and Paniculata varieties. These two species and their new introductions are pretty reliable to give lots of blooms every year.

Oldrosarian, you've got a way with words. I wish I had both your spunk and knowledge. The way you put it, hydrangeas don't look as tempting to me anymore.

Ikayetwvz5, ADR winners are not bullet proof, but an ADR awarded rose is still one to take another look at when selecting roses. It's a tool for us. Trying out new roses, ADR or not, in our own gardens is the real deal, the make or break moment. There are plenty of roses that are ADR equivalent. The problem is that it is a rose by rose, in garden test, very tedious process to find the good ones. A lifetime of research is the prescription.

Summer, Midge fly has been unbelievably light this year, like no year that I can remember out of the last 30 or so years of my battle, relentless battle with this nasty of nasties.

Pink Rose, I am very fortunate not to have Chili Thrips. I suppose it is too cold for them here, but who knows what's next. The damage they do is as gross as any insect damage I have ever seen. I'm a strong believer in the benefits of manure.

Pam, my experience with organics has been unsatisfactory results and foliage damage. I hold out hope for the day a non-oil type of organic is found to be effective. Yes, disease resistance is the way to go. I'm being more careful with selecting new roses, emphasizing disease resistance more and more. A gardening friend who is as smitten with Quietness and its great disease resistance as I am, said that wouldn't a rose bed of Quietness bushes and nothing else be great, solving a good bit of the disease issue problems? That would certainly simplify my life!

Lily, always ready with encouragement, thanks! Yes, things can go downhill almost overnight. Skip a beat as I have, and all the diligence practiced up to that point seems to be irrelevant, almost wasted time. But as you said, roses are not easy to grow.

Lily, O.T. I'm trying to be patient, waiting for the infamous Chantal Merieux to kick in. It has been a slow to establish rose for me so far. I hope yours is showing satisfactory progress. I put two of them into the garden. The older one (the survivor of the two I purchased from RU....a bad omen, maybe), bloomed with small, but beautifully formed blooms in spring with a few early summer followups, nothing right now and no sign of any blooms coming on. I think the show's over for this year. The cutting grown one is one of that multitude of trimmings that rooted like gangbusters last summer. It is growing slowly, with no attempt at blooming, nothing. I am willing to wait it out, right now anyway. The incredible photos of it are stuck in my head, which gives me hope.

Moses

Moses , mine is also just chugging along without blooms. I put a bamboo stick by it to remind myself who it was since I kept forgetting. :). I too had a couple blooms in the spring and now it’s in its new home . I can’t wait for next spring already to see it again !

Old rosarian , you are so funny :)

Moses you are priceless here so we hope you will keep growing a few roses and not leave us !!

Moses, maybe cut back on the number of roses you grow...

Personally I grow only what I can take care of without getting too stressed...lol

Ah, Moses, if only they could decouple the black spot/fragrance connection. The only really strongly fragrant rose I have is Zephyrine Drouhin, which is also the only one that consistently spots, and it’s a once bloomer for me. Surprised to find that Champagne Wishes has a delicious scent, even though it’s not advertised to have one. Much stronger than Sweet Fragrance. My whole family agrees. Have you tried that one?

To the actor who posted yesterday (quite artfully) under Moses' name:

Where is Moses

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/rose-midgean-approach-that-works-for-me-dsvw-vd~4331751?n=18

and what have you done with him?

3 in 1 Organocide Bee-Safe Garden Spray also comes in a concentrate. One quart makes 10 gallons. The main thing for me is that it can be mixed ahead—which, here in Western NC, zone 6b, means that I can have it ready for a clear day that pops up between big rains when black spot is on the prowl. As for disease resistant yet fragrant, Francis Meilland is beautiful with intense fragrance. Mine will get some BS if I don't spray but will not defoliate, and it gets no BS when I do spray. Moses, I have not had damage from the 3 in 1 on my roses here in Asheville. So much depends on our different locations and what pests we deal with. I fight thrip, blackspot, aphids, rust, and lacewing. Some years bad Japanese beetles, this year I might have seen two. Years past I lost several roses to voles, but that was solved by putting soil perfector in the soil mix when planting and scritching it in around the drip line of the established roses. I sometimes lament that I planted one of my favorites for fragrance and beauty—three of them in fact—Deelish, at all. Deelish is the most BS prone of all my roses and I believe it keeps an infection going in my garden. So next spring it gets sprayed (they all do) before BS develops—which I have not managed to do before. And if it STILL gets BS badly, all three will be shovel pruned. And then I'll cry.

Pam, does the 3 iin one work for mildew as well ?

Pam, I just picked up the 3 in one to spray those darn mini roses. Thanks for the heads up .

Pam,

I hope I will be able to give a better future report than yours, on my single Dee-Lish, first year in the garden. It came as an own root, gallon from Roses Unlimited . So far, it has given a continuous supply of blooms, and has gotten about 18" tall. However, I was surprised to find that it got black spot, especially since it is an ADR winner. For now, I will attribute this to its youth, and the very heavy black spot pressure that occurred this past season. Thanks for the heads up.

I was planning to put in multiple bushes of D-L, but will put this off for now. If your Dee-Lishes and mine prove to be total duds, don't cry! You will have prevented me from moving forward with my plans to plant more Dee-Lishes now, saving me money and regrets. This good deed should encourage you, and hopefully stop any tears!

Moses

I may be off Moses but I think sometimes roses come with different strains of BS then we already had in our garden.. I had severe BS on Earthsong its first season so I moved him to a new location and have not seen any BS since...2nd or 3rd seasons..No spray...

Of course there always could be other factors involved...lol...Thats why it so dang hard to really pinpoint things...lol

I found that m0st of the hydrangeas that I’ve grown all needed sprayed to keep the leaves clean. Just though I’d share that.

Jim,

Thanks for bringing up that point on your Earthsong's BS reversal. Amazing, what happens with roses at times.

I'm just going to let time reveal Dee-Lish's particular nature in my garden.

Patty,

My hydrangea 'itch' will go unscratched for now, and in the foreseeable future also.

Moses

On the other hand I had rose bushes that did well for 2-3 years then turn into BS disasters there-after...lol...

Years ago when I would email the late karl_bapst_rosenut about my rose leaf problems...He wrote back once and said, JIM learn to admire your rose bushes/blooms from afar and when you need to get close to the rose bush just close your eyes...lol...I always remember that and chuckle...lol

I do not have much experience with hydrangea but I do notice leaf diseases on our two bloomstrucks here in its first season... lol

Sorry to read this post on Dee-Lish! In the last few weeks people have posted some negative comments on roses that previously had glowing comments. Several of these roses are on my order list which I need to finalize soon. I have to admit I am leaning more now toward buying 'surprise' roses from the big box stores again this coming year for $5-$12 each. Some of the 14 that I bought this past year have been fairly good considering the spot problems this year. No worse than the $30 potted roses I bought!

Speaking of spirea's ...lol

I found this pic when I grew two big bang spirea's... Our cats would lay in them and flatten them down all the time...lol

But here's what they normally looked like when not flattened.....

yea stick with roses... lol

Awww, Jim you just reminded me of my dwarf Japanese maple. It was home to many a kitty. When they were small they would play king of the mountain on it for hours. As they got older it became a favorite sleeping spot under the dense canopy it provided on a hot summers day.

9-29-2018, after a very rainy period here in northeast Ohio, I look out at my 61 no spray rose bushes that appear to have all of their leaves.

Henry, do you have a list of your roses on HMF?

Henry,

I, like vaporvac, would like to know what varieties you grow. That information would help me greatly.

While at it Henry, if you are troubled with rose midge fly as I am, could you tell how you keep this major insect pest (at least for me it is), from limiting you flower production under no spray management?

If I could get control over black spot and rose midge fly, my absolutely worst enemies, and do it no spray, I believe it would add ten more years to my life, enjoyable ones too!

Thank you.

Moses

Jim,

Everyone knows that spirea bushes are therapeutic to cats. Spirea leaves and tender twigs have the same effect on cats as eider duck down bed pillows have on humans. I attended a lecture on the very subject once.

Moses

My 61 roses that made the cut from 1000.

See:

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110676259758596791462/album/AF1QipNkkkcdT2zvUIeFtOVd3v8gXqQIRMHyfGBNSgw

Haha! LOL! I should have known: not a one I could find myself! Do you ever share cuttings? I love that Rose from New Mexico.

vaporvac that would be #436. Send me an e-mail with your postal address and I will send you some cuttings if it is still living.

This group has the parents of the crosses given. Advance by using the right arrow.

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/110676259758596791462/album/AF1QipP_LipzM_pW6KW0EcWC8JKsOA60T4GxXx4ht8o/AF1QipOek5HuI1jHLdeyacl0te5qD9WOUKxQ4AClUyA

I wonder Moses, if you've ever been to the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden? They switched over all their roses that needed spraying to a 'no spray' garden only. So there are roses that don't require spraying, but I'm sure it was quite a task to take an established rose garden and change it all over. They also have a list of roses on their website that they chose to add once they made the switch.

I've never been, but I'd love to.

Prairiemoon,

I've never been to the Rockefeller rose garden. The photos of it online are impressive. I have, however, gone through their evaluation list with a fine toothed comb several times. All the high rated roses that also met my other qualifications have been either tried or are currently growing in my garden.

Thanks for the lead, though.

Moses

How many roses do you have Moses?

Jim,

Just stating that I have a bit under 50 roses in my one and only 8'x18' rose bed does not give a clear picture of the configuration. It would appear that my roses are crowded, but it's not so.

I will give a rose by rose list with comments.

There is a back fence to the bed, so roses are planted tall in the back, and short in the front. It's not an island bed with tall roses in the middle.

On the fence, which extends beyond the 18' length of the bed, 4' in each direction, making a total climbing rose growing length of 26'. 1.) Lady Ashe, 2.) Climbing Pink Don Juan, and 3.) Quick Silver fill the fence. They are planted directly at the base of the fence and have great soil in which to spread their roots beyond the fence away from the rose bed and into it, too.

The tallest roses, in from the fence are:

4.) Quietness - three bushes

5.) Aunt Honey

6.) Grand Dame

7.) Dee-Lish

8.) Scepter'd Isle

9.) Dame de Coeur

10.) Firefighter

11.) Sister Emmanuelle

In the middle are:

12.) Beverly

13.) Pretty Lady Rose

14.) Milwaukee's Calatrava

15.) Purple Prince

16.) Miranda Lambert

17.) Earth Angel

18.) Sweet Fragrance - two bushes

19.) Julia Child - two bushes

20.) Parade Day

21.) Chantal Merieux - two bushes

22.) Apricot Candy

At the front of the bed, short roses are planted, some at the very edge since the cement walk at the beds front edge sits on rich soil down quite a bit under it. The edge roses soften the starkly straight edge of the bed.

23.) Bolero - three bushes

24.) Sweet Arlene - five bushes

25.) Deja Blu - five bushes

26.) Apricot Drift

27.) Cafe Ole'

28.) Lavender Crystal

29.) Diamond Eyes

30.) Flawless

31.) Pope John Paul II - two bushes

The short roses (minis are planted 1' apart), wrap around the front, left, and right sides of the bed. BTW, Jim, all the short roses, but Bolero, PJP II, and Apricot Drift are scheduled for shovelpruning over the next couple years, to be replaced with equally short, but less black spot prone roses.

Moses

60 something is more roses than I could handle...lol

Trying to get a mental pic of your roses Moses...Thanks...

I have 60 and it doesn't seem like that many

About the sixty (60), rose original count on my first draft to Jim's question....

When I type a response to a post or start a discussion, I have to hit submit before I have completed my text. I have to tap submit after a few words/sentences of my texts or it gets mysteriously deleted by a combination of me having a touchy tablet and hyperactive fingers. Just barely touch anywhere on the screen other than on the keyboard, and 'hocus pocus' it's gone.

After I submit my partial post and it is accepted, I tap edit, and conclude my text message. Sounds primitive, but that's my solution to the very frustrating frequent accidental deletions I experience.

In the case of the above 60 rose count quoted by Jim and Kristine, in the first draft I listed 60 bushes, which Jim and Kristine read from that early draft. Continuing with composing my answer after I submitted it uncompleted, as I continued and named off my bushes, I discovered then that I had fewer bushes than I thought I had. Making the correction to under 50 roses was done too late for Jim and Kristine to read.

Sorry for the confusion.

Moses

In the past I have mentioned that some people are trying to grow healthy roses in what I consider soil that resembles "chemical dumps".

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/roses/query/%22chemical-dumps%22/nqrw

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=IPpoWpW2LcawzwKqnZbADg&q=mycorrhiza+fungicides&oq=mycorrhiza+fungicides&gs_l=psy-ab.12...3072.26918.0.30451.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c.1j2.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.jA5aj_eZjA0

Henry,

Don't you grow any other roses than the ones you bred yourself? Did you introduce any of your roses to the public, or are any of them growing in other locations like public gardens?

Moses

I grew many commercial roses as they were the original parents of my seedlings. I gave them away after I no longer needed them.

I tried introducing one rose through a famous company ( has All American Roses to their credit). I had to send them a number of rooted plants and canes for taking budwood from. After not hearing from them for quite a while (at least into the next year), I wrote them. Their very short reply was that they all died. I talked to other hybridizers and found that my experience was not unique.

I shared seeds, pollen, and cuttings with many other hybridizers. For example:

http://rosebreeders.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23990&p=23990&hilit=rugelda+kuska#p23990

Henry, you do not have your Houzz messaging turned on. I don't want to give my email here. Thank you.