If anyone can just give an opinion on what they believe is the problem with my foliage, it would really help me out and give me a starting point to research it.

I also have already looked for info on pruning roses in August, which is apparently not recommended, but this 'Beverly' rose has shot up 8ft unexpectedly in a position I can't leave it at that height over the winter. If I cut it to the height it needs to be, I am also cutting off the healthiest foliage, and will have to remove the diseased foliage at the bottom, so maybe I should just accept this rose as a bad purchase?

Just as a starting point for research - nutrient deficiencies/excesses

It doesn't look like any disease or insect damage I can think of. But it does look like some pictures of nutrient issues IIRC. Not any of the more normal ones, but trace element issues.

Is there a source to send material or photos to a lab that can help you ID these issues?

I think this is all usual for this phase of a rose's year. The dog days of Summer are no picnic. Here, I am noticing some rose canes I want to cut off, but I probably should wait for dormant season for the rose's best welfare. Here, I expect a Fall flush, but it is always fun to look forward to next Spring when all will be perfect.

I don't think it is too late to be feeding fish or alfalfa. There was a discussion on another thread about feeding and deadheading to give the roses as much energy as possible going into the winter. I'm wondering if your Savannah and Beverly could be nitrogen deficient? I've read that can cause the lower leaves to turn pale and curl. Just a wild guess though.

On your PJP, my Olympiad did that when I had it in a bucket and got it too wet and then it dried out too much before I watered it again. Trying to be more diligent about keeping it watered evenly so that it doesn't get drowned in an effort to recover has improved the leaves a lot. I don't know if that was the cause or not, but it seems to have evened out.

In spring, the new foliage always looks really good. And even when I've had some foliar issues over the course of a summer, the next spring it sprouts healthy foliage again. So, sure, it seems that every summer it's hard to get through the whole summer without a foliar issue, despite having researched for 'no spray' roses. I have had minor problems with Julia Child most years. Very few problems with Prairie Sunrise. This year seems worse than others and the weather has been very much worse than usual, but it would seem this is the new normal.

I will try to fertilize and clean them up and I'll have to cut back 'Beverly' and take my chances I guess. I will have to move it in the spring to somewhere that I can allow it to grow that tall and give it support. And I can give them all another season to figure out if they are going to work out for me.

I'm not sure I am cut out for rose growing. [g].

Third week August in hot and humid East: If that’s the worst of it, I say the foliage looks awfully good.

My compliments (!!!)

Still, the pattern on the bottom of Beverly is interesting - an ID app for this kind of thing would be nice.

That's tough. I am not in a place where I can really spray (surrounded by fish ecosystems so I don't want to risk getting in trouble with Game & Fish lol) but I also don't have a lot of disease pressure so I try to feed lots of different things and hope that gives my roses enough support to be able to fight off whatever diseases arrive. It's been really interesting reading up on how feeding can make a difference to susceptibility--for instance I gave Champlain too much acidic horse manure and it was covered in powdery mildew less than two days later. So I mixed a bunch of fireplace ash in to alkalize the soil and within a few more days the mildew was gone again. There are some really interesting posts on the Organic Rose Forum that have been very helpful for me.

I actually think your roses look quite good toward the end of a hot /humid summer. Older worn out leaves have a harder time processing nutrients and do tend to look deficient as they age out. In your situation I’d fertilize and trim off maybe 15-20 percent off the top now to revitalize the plants for a nice fall bloom. (Maybe for something healthy but out-of-bounds like Beverly, I’d trim of 50% from 8ft to 4ft). I’d leave the heavy pruning for next spring, when you can trim modern roses down to 18-24”.

Again, I don’t think there’s any severely deficient you need to ‘fix’ and you’ve done a good job of maintaining them so far.

Here is a full photo of 'Pope John Paul' He had a problem with bugs in the blossoms early in the season but now the blooms are clean, I removed any ugly foliage that was mostly around the bottom. It just occurred to me, that this rose had the most air circulation around it. This is it's 2nd year.

Joey, I grow organically 100%. It is interesting how much feeding makes a difference. Sounds like you work with organic fertilizers? I’ll take a look at the Organic Rose forum, since it's about time I did a little work on my soil too. Thanks.

BenT - Thanks for the input. What do you usually fertilize with? I have been using liquid fertilizer - Neptune's Harvest fish emulsion. It's organic and does have a low nitrogen content. I top dressed with Coast of Maine compost and Alfalfa meal in the spring.

Neptune's Harvest Rose and Flower Formula

I can live with cutting Beverly back to a 4ft height. I'm also planning to pull out a number of plants that are too close to the roses.

BTW, I did look at online photos of discolored rose foliage and I haven't seen a match for this yet.

Thank you all for great input! A lot easier to do what you need to do when you can figure out what. [g]

The fertilizer choices look very good to me. I feed with a variety of fertilizers, not exclusively organic, but usually with primarily organic components. I like Milorganite, Fish Bone meal , rosetone or similar for plants on the ground, Mills rose magic for plants in pots. I also do alfalfa tea in spring, seaweed extract . My soil is very alkaline and iron poor, so I also add sulfur and cheleated iron.

I use planttone and holly tone on a few shrubs, but haven't done Rosetone on the roses. I have loamy clay soil with a 6pH. You are brave to do alfalfa tea, I've been scared off by reports of odor. [g] Do you use alfalfa meal in it? I think some people grow alfalfa. Thanks for those ideas. You

For mid August they don't really look all that bad. And it has been unusually hot for longer than normal in a lot of places. Give those poor babies a break. I hate to think what I'd look like stuck out in 90+ heat for days on end, lol!

Seriously, I would just keep them well watered and give them that fish emulsion. Organics feed the soil. Feed the soil, feed the rose. Organics can be used any time to enrich the soil. As for fertilizers, I feed mine right up to dormancy. Stopping fertilizing does not stop the roses from growing. They will continue to grow as long as the weather permits anyway. So I want them to have plenty of resources to grow with now and to still store energy in those canes to start out with next spring.

If Beverly is throwing up big canes then she is happy and healthy! Not a thing to worry about. We can do our best to prune the roses to grow the way we'd like but in the end the rose will grow how it wants to! It's like trying to keep a climber as a miniature or shrub rose to grow tall and lanky like an HT. You can try but the rose won't listen! They all have their own type of growth habit and it's best to work with them instead of against them.

Just remember fall is coming and once it cools down a little they will begin to grow and bloom beautifully once again.

I agree, Seil, I wouldn’t last a day out there in this weather! [g]. But I thought roses liked sun and heat? Just not that much I guess.

I’m going to give them a good dose of organics tomorrow. Good to know that you can fertilize so late, thanks. I’ve not been clear on that.

That’s a good point, that Beverly has to be healthy to be throwing up big canes. That’s fine. Maybe she’d make a better climber on a pillar or something, but the description on Palatine was a 3-4ft shrub, so that was what I was expecting, so I’m going to have to rethink where to place her.

Yes, fall cannot come soon enough for me!

Thank you!

The leaves on the bottoms of Beverly and Savannah look a lot like fertilizer burn that occurred early in the season. It's not from overhead watering or lack of air circulation. However, I suspect the other possibility is what the issue is - a magnesium deficiency. Magnesium deficiency starts on the lower leaves with yellowing between the veins and the leaves will brown from the outside, working its way inward. Are either of those two Roses close to your foundation? Do you have any idea what the pH of your soil is? The pH of the soil affects the plant's ability to absorb magnesium. You might try dissolving a tablespoon of Epsom salt in a gallon of water and give that to your roses. That will give them a shot of magnesium right away.

The general rule about fertilizing is that you can fertilize A to A - April through August. The same would go for pruning because at this point the new growth after you prune would have time to harden off before it freezes.

Deanna

Hi Deanna, thanks for helping to figure it out too. Unfortunately, I only use Fish emulsion and I only use as recommended on the bottle for one gallon and I fill my watering can to one and a half gallons of water, so it's a little more diluted than recommended. Hard to think that could have burned the plants. Or that it wouldn't have burned a lot of plants I fertilized, which it didn't. And they are not near the foundation of the house. Our soil has a pH of 6, but I haven't tested that bed in awhile.

I do have Epsom salts in the house. Should I try to add that anyway, to see if it makes a difference?

That's great, there's time left to fertilize and prune. I better get busy fast. [g].

Yes I think you should go ahead and give it some Epsom salt. The more I looked at it the less I think it's fertilizer burn and the more I think it's a nutrient deficiency.

Deanna

Deanna, I'm still thinking about what you said and I was just looking at my photos of 'Beverly' again and compared it to Magnesium deficiency online. It does look like that. But, looking at the top growth on 'Beverly' in my photo above. Every leaf looks perfect. And the early spring foliage was perfect as well.

Ben, said earlier..."Older worn out leaves have a harder time processing nutrients and do tend to look deficient as they age out..."

I wonder if that could be the case?

Since I haven't had a soil test there in awhile, I hope to get one soon. Make sure the pH is right, too.

I think your roses look great, prairiemoon!

Prairiemoon, I really appreciate your taking the time to catalog your growing season. It is a very helpful resource: what things looked like, what you did, what they looked like after your response...

Prairiemoon thank you for the update. The more info we have the easier it is to organic garden. Your garden is looking great!

Well, I have been persuaded that it's more than possible to grow roses organically and I lost a lot of years not growing them, thinking it was too hard, so I like to let others know that might be wondering how well you can do with them using organic methods. I feel at this point that it is as easy to grow them organically as any other garden plant. AndI wouldn't be without a rose now.

I also like to let people here know that they have helped me every time I post with a problem or a question and your help does make a difference. 😃