Michaelg, I appreciate your knowledge, which helps me to understand the role of soluble vs. insoluble nitrogen. And BellaL, thanks for presenting your problem which helps me in Illinois. I read that tree bark deprives the soil of nitrogen as it breaks down, so we always need to add nitrogen to the soil if tree bark mulch is used. Composted grass clippings and leaves are far superior to tree bark mulch in supplying nitrogen. I mulched my tomato bed with grass clippings, and don't have to water my tomato garden this year, since it retains moisture well. Another way to know if your soil is deficient in nitrogen is the presence of nitrogen-fixation plants, such as clover, and those annoying stringy weeds with white flowers. I got sick of pulling those long stringy weeds up, so I dumped bloodmeal around my Norway Spruces - and no more stringy weeds afterwards. Plants can extract phosphoric acid (good for blooms) easily from clay soil, but have a hard time extracting nitrogen. My white pines are yellowish in new growth, - so I dumped blood meal on them, and the growth is deeper green, with less pine cones. The good result of horse manure on my roses can be verified by this sentence from the reference book, Botanica's Roses "High alkalinity can be reduced by the addition of peat or manure, or by applying suplphate of ammonia." The best instruction for growing roses is from Pat of Rosesownrootunlimited, which I erred and learned from my mistakes: 1) Dig hole at least 18" deep and wide 2) Plant rose slightly raised (esp. in clay with poor drainage) 3) Per planting hole: 2 cups of alfafa meal, 1/4 peat moss, 1/4 compost, 1/4 top soil, and 1/4 clay. The other stuff, such as 1 cup superphosphate, 1 cup lime, 1 cup gympsum are NOT necessary for clay soil in Illinois, heavy in dolomite lime. The 2 cups of alfafa meal are important. Out of my 10 baby roses planted this year, 2 are underperformers (Eglantyne and William Shakespeare in a pot - and both these don't get the 2 cups of nitrogen like others, so the leaves are more yellowish).

Sally, Do you guys have Chilli thrips that far north of me? The death of the terminal shoot does not strike me as typical of rose rosette, and RRD, in my experience, is much more aggressive in its growth. With all things considered, I believe RRD is essentially cancer of roses in that the virus causes hyperneoplasia. From what I know of cancer viruses in eukaryotic cells, death does not occur to the cancerous cells as long as there is a food source to feed the growth. Therefore the growth endangers the organism as a whole but does not cause destruction of the affected cells. Therefore I would have to strongly stand by the prognosis that the plant is not RRD infected. I would suspect environmental factors before disease factors. If the damage is indeed caused by chilli thrips, which can be highly mobile, it may explain the lack of observable, offending organisms on the sample. I hope Dr. Malcolms can offer his assistance here. He is far more knowledgeable than I, and I am merely an undergrad student. Please do not take my thoughts as scientific as law. Josh

Yikes! Zone 3 is tough for roses. But it can be done. I don't know that I would plant them now but do take them outside and let them start to acclimate and go dormant. Treat them for the spider mites and put them outside in full sun and keep them watered and fed until they go completely dormant. That means at least 3 good hard frosts and the soil is frozen. Do you have a garage? If so put them on a shelf inside the garage (not in the window) for the winter once they go dormant. Give them some water about once a month all through the winter. In the spring when they start to show signs of growth again take them out into the daylight. If you don't have a garage then probably the best thing to do would be to dig deep holes and completely bury them, pots and all, in the ground for the winter and then dig them up next spring. You can lay them on their sides to bury them but you need to make sure there is a good 6 to 8 inches of soil over them. And a thick layer of mulch over that wouldn't hurt either. As far as planting them permanently in the ground it depends a lot on how hardy they are. The bad thing is that those grocery store minis aren't really bred or tested for hardiness. Some of them can do just fine but there's no way of knowing until you try. The good thing about them is that they are on their own roots so that even if they die back completely to the ground any thing that comes up from the roots will still be the rose you bought. As a general rule minis are fairly hardy, but like I said, zone 3 is tough. Good luck and keep us posted on how they're doing!

Stockergal, it broke my heart to have to cut them back so hard, but clearly that's what they needed. All the roses I grew up with only ever needed a spring haircut & deadheading to put on a show from spring to fall, so this was something new to me. I'm a rose lover but no expert. I really hope they make it. I will be tracking down some compost & watering thru winter. I'll be ready for spring fungus spraying, previous homeowner said they got blackspot & dropped all leaves last spring. In the meantime I've been researching varieties that are resistant to blackspot to potentially replace them if they don't make it. Besides that, I love roses so I'd really like to have more anyway. Thanks for the advice, never had to nurse roses before so any tips are greatly appreciated !