No herbacide anywhere near these roses, so I am certain that's not it. The roses were not dead, but they had been in decline for the past several years and would have 1 or 2 deformed canes (witches broom) as well as splotches on the canes. At first, I just thought it was a rogue cane or two and would trim them off. But, RRD is getting to be big news in North Texas, so when I became aware of it, I realized that's probably what it was. If I do keep the two roses in question, I will definitely need to move them to a sunnier location. I have a spot where I'd like to put them, but it is near another bed with healthy roses (Knock Outs, Valentine, Lamarque). Thanks for the advice.

Did Blue Girl show other symptoms of RRD? Did the canes that started red turn green? Or did other symptoms arise on that bush? Transmission within a garden seldom has ever happend in that sort a period of time. The vector mite populations don't spike until September in zone 5 conditions (this from the juried scientific literature.) When the rose arrived at your home from Michigan Bulb, was it leafed out, or was it bare of leaves, and had it been dipped in wax? You may not have heard of RRD before this happened. Most people haven't. But you might want to consider that the disease has been to the north of you in Canada, to the south of you in Pennsylvania, in every county in Ohio to the west of you. And so far, I've seen it to the east of you in the BBG in Brooklyn...in the middle of the city. The vector mites are easily carried by winds and fall infections on hybrid teas show most often in new growth the following spring. This I know from my own garden experiences and it fits what others see, as well. There is no way to say where the vector mites came from that infected the rose in your garden that is near your new rose. (And there is no lab test to identify the disease; experienced plant pathologists depend on a collection of symptoms for identification.) There is NO reason to tear up an entire rose bed. As suggested above, remove the sick rose(s). That's what we do when other diseases strike and it works for RRD. Do look upwind of your home for Rosa multiflora. You may find it along stream beds or even growing up into trees. With the disease pressure on roses to the north west and south of your state, RRD is moving into New York, even though it doesn't get talked about. Good luck. Don't panic or make yourself ill about this. I can say this because I've been dealing with RRD in my garden for ten years. I continue to grow roses. I loose a couple of plants each year to RRD. There's RRD in wild roses three miles away. It's become a fact of life, but I can enjoy the ones that live and try to mourn the ones I loose....a lot like life, really. My E-book linked below has twelve chapters about rose rosette as well as a FAQ. It's based on a lot of visiting other gardens with RRD in them as well as a lot of research. The Bibliography at the back is up to date, science wise, if you can stand to read about the intentional spread of RRD to kill multiflora.

Roundup can pass through a connected system. But despite Henry's repeated quotes of various scientific articles (usually related to edible annual herbaceous plants unrelated to roses or seedling growth in farmland) there is no real evidence that any transfer from roots to soil to roots in the sort of application we're talking about, can really harm an adjacent hardwood bush like a rose, not to mention a huge established shrub like the one we are discussing. People have been 'surgically' removing garden plants using roundup for ever. Most of it is bound rapidly to the soil (to the extent that cutting a stub and powdering with a little dirt before 'rounduping' greatly diminishes the efficacy of the herbicide) and what little may or may not end up in the rizosphere from where some may or may not be absorbed by adjacent roots has not shown any harmful effects under field conditions. Now we have discussed this repeatedly before and I'm sure Henry will come up with yet a few obliquely related articles stating that traces of roundup or the results of its decomposition in the soil have mean identified in adjacent plants (and I have no reason not to believe this) but the field experience of millions of gardeners and farmers shows you can roundup a bush with the cut and apply method with no noticeable harmful effects to the adjacent ones. If there was a problem we would know about it through collective knowledge and word of mouth even if we didn't undestand the mechanics of it. I don't challenge what the linked articles are describing, I'm challenging Henry's crude interpetation and his arbitrary chain linking of them, which is grossly exaggerating to say the least. I'm sure Henry understands very well what he's reading but when someone is on a mission anything goes. There, I have vented off. PS I have never ever sprayed roundup or any other herbicide in my garden for weed control and I don't intend to, but I have used roundup on cut stems and stubs of small bushes and large trees repeatedly when it was the only viable solution to get rid of the plant for whatever reason. PS2 In the above I don't mean to recommend the roundup method for the particular RRV suspicion problem at hand. Firstly I have no knowledge or experience of RR disease and secondly I wouldn't do it myself out of fear of passing the herbicide through a possibly connected root system which, even if it doesn't kill the mother plant, it may cause symptoms similar to RRD which, for obvious reasons, would defeat the purpose of the original effort to save the mother plant..... I just commented on the use of roundup to kill individual plants.

I added what I had on Friday. I can see the addition, but it was never recorded in the number of posts???? Title: "First report of rose rosette disease caused by Rose rosette virus on Knock Out roses in Louisiana." Author(s) : Singh, R.; Valverde, R.; Cook, M.; Owings, A. Author Affiliation : Department of Plant Pathology and Crop Physiology, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. Author Email : rsingh@agcenter.lsu.edu Journal article : Plant Health Progress 2016 No.August pp.PHP-BR-16-0022 ref.1 Abstract : " To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of rose rosette disease caused by Rose rosette virus on Knock Out roses in Louisiana. It is difficult to assess the total value of roses in Louisiana but this disease has the potential to negatively impact the thriving rose industry in the state."