I like Michael's first two principals. Until three years ago I would have liked the third, but I lost a huge Tea Noisette and I never saw sick growth up any cane, only coming out from a mature basal cane as if it were a new basal break. I think what happend was a bud axil had a RRD vector mite bite, that went down the very woody stem, and the first non-dormant leaf axil (one of those that were there when the cane first emerged) showed really hideous growth. That growth even spiraled as one side of the cane outgrew the other. Re photos above. I'd watch Belinda's for a while. I think it's ok. But I don't like the edge of that leaf in the last photo. Have you changed ferilizers recently? Something is going on/wrong with the teas in these photos. Background: when a spray of buds happens, the oldest bud blooms first and is easily seen, then the subsequent buds' stems continue to grow and as those buds mature, that first and spent bloom is often hidden by the subsequent blooms. It bothers me that your tea buds are being overgrown on most of these stems almost a week or two BEFORE the oldest bud opens in bloom. That's not supposed to happen. IS there any chance you had a yard crew use some sort of special chemical mix on your yard (or on a neighbor's yard?) Email me..we're going to be in Asheville tomorrow at the western NC Arboreteum for their rose exhibition and DH and I are giving two talks in the afternoon. There are some other things I'd like you to check on this new growth...is there pith? Or can you flatten these red stemswith gentle finger squeezes? Are the buds all there, sexually? (Some RRD sick roses lack major bloom parts.) Ann

I've grown Cornelia, but I don't recall that reddish a color, especially when it's still the heat of summer. Things that bother me: that Cornelia is a hybrid musk and a lot of folks have had RRD problems on hybrid musks before other roses in their gardens have the problem (like a two year lead). that there's a mottle/mosaic distortion in color on some leaves. that the new leaves have a really short intermodal distance. There's one large leaf that seems to have epinastic leaf distortion (bent over backwards). That there are so many reddish leaves and a slowness to turn red-green and eventually green. If it were mine: here are two things I'd check and be unsentimental about: are the margins of the newest leaves "normal" or are they getting ragged? What do the stipules look like at the bases of those leaves? Reason esp. for the stipules is that they on multiflora kin roses (which includes all the early Hybrid Musks of which Cornelia is one) go totally aberrant and excessive fringed when RRD is a full on problem. Let us know what you see on those last two questions. Ann

Nothing overly suspicious to me. But watch that the new leaves turn green. It should happen within the week. John

The unexpected sometimes just hits us in the face. The first RRD in my garden happened when we had taken out a 'volunteer' wild rose that was a bird dropped multiflora seedling. (Darn.) My husband dug it out midsummer and it put up one puny cane in August. September came with a ground cracking drought, and the cracks in the ground were right next to the volunteer cane. Then suddenly every leaf axil on that cane sprouted aberrant new growth A midwinter thing I saw on RRD sick roses in other peoples' gardens. Winter had hit, rose leaves were brown and canes were totally dormant. Out of the dark, came single massive bright green canes with gnarly looking leaves at every leaf axil. Bright Green. When nothing else was. The canes quickly died in the next freeze, but really unexpected.