I also sometimes have that happen, but I don’t know what causes it - my guess is some sort of insect damage, but would love to figure it out, if anyone knows!

I have this problem with my Evelyn roses that are in too much shade. In spring, the trees aren't fully leafed out when Evelyn has her first bloom. But when it's time for the second flush, the trees are leafed out and produce too much shade for the poor roses, so they abort most of their buds. I just hate this, but assume there is not enough of the sun's energy for the Evelyns to use to open their buds. That takes rose energy. Fewer leaves are produced, too. I am thinking that the stress of the juice sucking aphids was too much for your rose, and she aborted her buds. Can you spray off the aphids with a jet of water? I get just moderate infestations of the pests, and water spray gets rid of them quickly. Good luck with this problem. Diane

Sorry Lilyfinch to see your buds damaged. I do not know what could be causing this. I hope someone has a good idea here and can help you. I feel like a terrible hypocrite because I advised some gentleman I think to removed his thrips with a jet of water not long ago. I have never seen as many thrips on my roses as I have this year so after two sprays with incerticidal soap didn’t work I sprayed with conserve. Hope your aphids go away soon.

Have you noticed any curculio weevils on the roses ?

ARGH....! I HATE curculio weevils! However, in my garden they only go for the small to tiny buds - not medium or large ones. You can always tell if it is curculio damage, because there are black holes poked in the sides of the buds, and the buds sort of droop over immediately, instead of staying upright. I don't see evidence of either of those things on this rose. BTW, if anyone every does see curculio damaged buds, it is very important to pick the buds off the bush, and put them in the trash - they are full of beetle eggs, and if left on the bush will drop off, and the eggs will produce beetles in the next year, which will fly up into the bush again and start poking holes in the new buds.

Jackie

I think I read somewhere that sometimes roses will selectively drop some of their buds if there are too many for the plant to support, given conditions. It could be that?

I can't help you with the bud drop, Lilyfinch, but I seem to remember spraying aphids with soapy water in the dim and distant past.

That's what I was talking about--not enough sunlight for a bush full of buds to open, or loss of fluids from the buds. The rose can't support all the buds and aborts them. Yes, this is what it's called.

That looks like aphids, which are easily discouraged, as Diane Brakefield says above. I used to buy a spray for them, then realized the spray was essentially water, oil, and soap, so I made my own, and then found I could actually spray the little buggers off with water and they would stay off. I prefer using water only because it means I can hose them down the minute I see them without waiting for dusk—whereas to spray oils and soaps in sunlight can burn the leaves.

My picture from the post was skewed so I may wrong but it looks like something I had that was actually RRD. . I had similar examples to your pictures with some but not all bud drop. The bush later developed to the more obvious sign of infection. Sorry do not mean to be an alarmist but it is so important to protect other roses. I lost 3 that I did not have to lose as a result of not recognizing. Good luck hope I am wrong.

Austin .. your post made me go to help me find to see what the rose should look like ,

and from there I see the red foliage is not really common . I’m positive it’s the correct rose . I’ve had rrrd many times in Tennessee.. and this rose is brand new from palantine and being here in Ca I’m ruling out rrd for now . ( of course it’s not impossible! ) However I realized I really need to fertilize these pots . I used a potting soil from Kellogg , afterward reading that wasn’t the best choice I could have made . I wonder if i should have mixed in a light fertilizer when planting . I probably won’t use that soil again , because I realized my other palantine roses don’t have as many buds as I would expect.

I do sincerely hope it’s not rrd , and maybe if it isn’t raining I’ll get a better shot for you . Thanks !!!

I am probably wrong Lily and we have enough to worry about with me alarming you to RRD. Sorry. I just caught last year with my pants down so to speak because of symptoms that did not ring true. Happy Easter or whatever you holiday. 😍

Without not with...

Lily,

I had the exact same thing happen with my Jeanne LaJoie bushes, climbing mini right before their first spring flush buds started to open. The bushes were huge, having 10' canes in abundance, and the bud count for the spring flush went into the many hundreds per bush.

Although classed as a mini for its small foliage and flower size, which flower is large for a mini, it produced 6+ buds per cluster. I think just because of their super abundance of buds produced, the bushes just spontaneously suspended sending energy to one or two of the about 1/3 developed buds per cluster, here and there on the bushes. They did this, IMHO, because the bounty of buds was too much to sustain.

Secondarily, it could have been a genetic fault of my Jeanne LaJoie climbers, which also may be the same case for Larissa.

My JLaJ dropped those buds every single year without fail just before coloring up their spring flush blooms.

Subsequent summer flushes, not abundant as the spring flush, and the drop discontinued.

The spring show of bloom seemed undiminished by the drop though, with about 5-6% of all buds produced, dropping. The bushes produced blooms in wreckless abundance literally obscuring their foliage.

Moses

Jena, my Perle d’Or did the bud drop thing it’s first year, the whole year. A lot of my roses also had chlorosis, including Perle d’Or, even though they were getting regular Magnesium-sulfate and I was alternating between Miracle Grown and a seaweed fertilizer, all in the hopes of curing them of chlorosis. Mostly it was the Polyanthas and Multifloras that had this problem. Finally I sent in a sample for a soil test. I had plenty of all the minerals and nutrients except for Nitrogen (which I already knew since its obviously devoid of any organics and so I was fertilizing) and absolutely zero Manganese (Mn) detected. Once I put a teaspoon of Manganese Sulfate dissolved in a gallon of water on each rose last fall the chlorosis completely disappeared and Perle d’Or stopped dropping buds. I will now do this once or twice a year; not too often since Mn is a minor nutrient and too much can be toxic. The Miracle grow I was using did have trace Mn, but somehow it wasn’t enough. I wonder if my soil was just binding it up?

This just demonstrates that bud drop could be due to lack of an essential nutrient. It might not necessarily be Manganese for you. But since you mention the Kellogg soil might not be that great, I would give it a nice dilute liquid fertilizer once a week and see if it cures it.

Right now, I am growing more roses in pots than ever, and already see the difference potting soil and feeding protocol makes. I agree with Stephanie regarding the first steps being to address potential nutrient issues versus the dreaded RRD... which IS/WAS in CA, recently, but hopefully was contained... if that is truly possible at this point...