Louis, what exposure are they facing? Could it be sun they are lacking if they are leggy and not blooming? The DA size guesses are all wrong for the US.

Vaporvac is a wonderful gardener on these forums, and she is gardening in Ohio. I hope she pitches in with ideas.

If a plant is too large for it's spot, trimming a rose back would help on some level but some just regrow too large again.

Whatever, I don't see any of this causing permanent harm to your plants into next year.

Thanks Sheila! That makes me feel a lot better. I was nervous I might lose all my babies!

North facing - full sun

Also Louis, adding your zone and State to your houzz accnt would help people help you, because those from your area will rush to your aid.

Somehow, I wish they were south facing, but full sun sounds great.

Thanks for the tip! I’ll do that

louislinusOriginal Author

1 hour ago

North facing - full sun

Up against the multiple story house, north facing full sun sounds like close to the equator.

Rather than Ohio, whatever the quadrant.

Hi Louis, what a beautiful garden! What kind of roses do you have? I don’t have much experience but the consensus is that climbers should be trained as horizontal as possible, otherwise they will mostly just bloom at the top. For blackspot, could they be stressed by heat? I haven’t had much on my roses yet, and as soon as I see a leave turning yellow I remove right away and try to water more often (always at the base). I think the most recommended fungicide here is the bayer bio advance which comes in spray or drench. I also see lots of sawfly damage, rose slugs that eat the leaves and could cause some stress. for that I spray the plant with a strong jet of water to try to remove as much as possibl. good luck!

Hi Louis,

I love your garden!

I too see the rose slugs damage, I have them here a lot as well. I remove them by hand. I’m near Pittsburgh and didn’t had much blooms during the heat.

Do you have midge? I have roses in zone 6a (NY) and 5b (PA), I got midge in both places. My roses won't bloom without monthly treatment.

I haven’t seen midges but it’s entirely possible. Can I use one insecticide for midges and slugs?

Summers beat me to it? You obviously have sawfly damage, some BS, but not defoliating and what looks like cercospora, another fungal disease, but none of these would prevent flowering. The two main culprits are lack of sun and midge. Also, generally a northern exposure is not in full sun.... that's a southern exposure. Which way does the front of your house face? The good thing is it sounds like they get full all day sun, which leaves us with midge. : (( Do you ever see a black burnt match looking growing tip or buds that stay small and dry up. Could you get any close-ups of the growing tips and leaves?

Yes I do see buds that stay small and dry up. I’ll get pics tomorrow. Also I’m an idiot. My beds are south facing not north. 🤪

The first two years my roses were gorgeous so I wasn’t much on the lookout for problems. Sounds like I’ve got a lot to fix!

I am a bit confused about your exposure. It is my understanding that north-facing sites may not get enough sun. Is it possible to get full-sun in a north-facing location? How many hours of full sun?

It’s actually south facing. I misspoke

louislinus:

When midge is a problem, one does not typically see midge, but rather the larval sequelae, such as “ buds that stay small and dry up” ( as you mentioned).

For quite some time, I read about this thing called midge, thankful that it wasn’t here in NJ, while wondering why my rose buds and growing tips dried up and aborted.

!

Can't like that rifis. ((

So what should I use to help these babies?

I'm zone 6b and my roses look similar. The heat didn't help at all and my David Austin rose also has blackspot all over! I'd love some natural suggestions as I'm trying to stay away from pesticides.

Let's determine first if you have midge.

Took some better pics. Let me know what I should be looking for.

And then there’s this poor guy. The others are at least still green but this one (David Austin Strawberry Hill) looks very sick.

I’m awake here only because of hourly veterinary nursing checks.

I don’t see midge.

Louis,

I don't see midge either, as Rifis states, but that doesn't mean you don't have the dreaded rose midge fly to some degree, of which damage you have not provided photos, you probably not knowing exactly what midge damage looks like, being relatively new to roses. I hope your garden is midge free, but that's not likely. You and I here in Pittsburgh, garden in midge 'ground zero!'

My advice for a solution to your multiple issues is:

1. Fertilize twice a year, once in April and then again in July, with Miracle Gro Shake 'n Feed for roses and Blooming plants. Follow the label instructions.

2. Check the pH of your soil, and adjust it if needed, with either lime if too acidic, or Ironite if not acidic enough. I like ~6.5 pH for my roses.

3. Spray every two weeks with a combination of two Bayer products in the same 1 gallon of water: 1 T. Bayer Bio-Advanced Complete Insect Killer, and 1.5 T. Bayer Bio-Advanced Disease Control for Roses, Flowers and Shrubs.

4. Keep your roses well watered.

5. Spray the entire bush, concentrating your attention to growing tips. Spraying with the above will address all your disease and insect issues to the best degree humanly possible. Unfortunately there are no effective organic remedies that I have found, and I leave no leaf left unturned.

6. Prune your bushes properly, not that you aren't, just a good spring pruning with follow up, season long dead heading, will go a long way to maintaining good growth.

Your perennials growing around the roses, especially Perovskia, could not grow as excellently as they are if you did not have adequate sunlight there. So, don't be worried about that. Your roses are receiving sufficient sunlight.

You have a beautiful home with a well designed flower bed there. So don't throw in the towel with your roses. You can grow roses there that turn heads!

Get those Austin's whipped into top shape, and if after they are growing to their maximum potential and you are not pleased with them or with an individual named variety, just replace it.

Moses

Thank you for the excellent advice! I’ve been using Magnum for fertilizer but probably not doing it enough. I will definitely get the Bayer and give that a try. Will hopefully update in a few weeks with pics of a revitalized bed!

I should add that the first 2 years the roses were gorgeous so I thought that I was going to be immune to the common pests of roses. Turns out I’m a mere mortal like the rest. 😝

I agree that I don't see midge in those pics, but can't really see the growing tips and in my garden, midge affects those more than the buds. Mine never actually become buds if there's midge. If you Google 'rose midge' images the Sacramento and Indianapolis Rose Societies have two really representative pics.

Oh yeah we got midges. One look at the actual fly and I know we have them. I’ve seen that fly this year a lot and wondered what it was. 😬

Will that Bayer Advanced work?

cyfluthrin works as a spray. I have seen the fly once. That ovipositor is unmistakable. Do you see the burnt-looking tips?

I’m heading to the garden center right now for something else (new conifer garden) will check the tops when I get home. I know I’ve seen the fly because I remember thinking it looked like a mix between a fly and a hornet.

They are very tiny and delicate looking, not nearly as large as a rose slug fly. It almost looks like a baby mosquito.

Once is good, vaporvac.

I have never seen the fly.

Once was enough! : (

Not midge. If midge is the culprit buds would dry up and fall off when they are tiny like a grain of rice. Your buds are much bigger. Lack of water is my guess. Water more deeply and more frequently?

I would also prune off the weak twigs and crossed branches especially at the bottom to improve air circulation. I find this helps with disease and pests too. Not hard pruning at this time of the year though. After pruning apply some fertilizer to give them a boost.

I see some pest damage like saw fly but really not that bad.

I came here to post this pic because my roses seem to have rebound a little

But then......

I found this guy 😖. So midges right?

That is not a midge. They are deposited where buds form. and are teeny tiny.

Louislinus:

Vaporvac posted a comment, with photo link, about midge. And then you responded “Oh yeah we got midges. I’ve seen that fly a lot this year”

Now that you have posted the close up photo of the white bloom, I am curious to see what (in vaporvac’s link) you had viewed which then led you to conclude “ ...we got midges”.

louislinus You have a beautiful house. I love your gorgeous stone-walkway. The above pic. (white rose) has a green rose slug. Rose slugs (sawfly larvae) infest roses in poor-drainage clay. You have lots of Walker's low blue catmint, which thrive in heavy clay here. The second pic. (from the top of your post) shows lots of holes in leaves, besides black spots. I also see rose-slug damage (brownish-latticed leaves). Holes in leaves are typical of slow drainage dense clay in heavy rain.

I used to get holes in leaves right after heavy rain, then I moved roses and found water could not drain fast in that spot. Roses that like fast-draining like Queen Nefertiti is most susceptible to rose-slug and holes in leaves. I fixed the soil with fast-draining coarse sand, dug out all the rocks below, and NO MORE green ROSE SLUGS.

Do you have dense clay soil? If so, then poor-drainage is a problem in mid-west heavy rain. I would check for drainage: dig a hole near the MOST black spotted rose, pour a 5 gallon bucket of water down that hole. If the water doesn't drain within 10 min, any rose would black spot in that area during heavy acidic rain. pH of rain in Midwest area is 4.5.

With my 134 varieties of roses, black spot is no longer a problem once I check the planting hole for fast drainage by pouring a 5-gallon bucket of water, before planting a a rose. If the water doesn't drain fast enough, I keep digging and often I would find large stones that block drainage. High Country roses recommend digging a hole 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep. But I often dig deeper than that to check for stones.

A quick fix to slow down the heavy & acidic rain is to pile up horse manure (the type with wood-chips, rather than hay). Hay is acidic, but sawdust/woodchips decomposes to alkaline. There's a poor drainage spot where I dug down 2 feet and found water .. but Golden Celebration (black spot-prone) was 100% healthy. I piled up ALKALINE horse manure (with wood-chips) up to 1 feet tall. When acidic rain at pH 4.5 poured down, it was instantly neutralized by that pH 8 horse manure. Stable here deodorizes horse manure with shell lime (high in calcium & high pH). Calcium is the best buffer against acidic rain.

The LEACHING of calcium is what causes holes in leaves after heavy rain. Once the leaves are thinned out with acidic rain, they are more susceptible to rose-slugs (green sawfly larvae). I never have rose slugs in the years with horse manure, despite poor drainage clay. In the years of topping roses with horse manure (pH 8), zero black spots in raised beds, and very few leaves with black spots in poor-drainage clay. (posted plenty of pics. in Organic Rose forum).

Besides calcium, horse manure has anti-fungal trace elements (zinc and copper) to thicken leaves. Pics below are my roses with horse manure, note the THICKER foliage. Decades ago I saw the same flawless foliage in a neighbor who used horse manure & same with another garden with horse manure. From that time on, I started topping roses with horse manure. I don't spray.

Rifis - I think I have seen the fly. And thought I remembered there being a larvae for midge and simply assumed the slug that I saw was a larvae of the midge. Glad to know it’s not that.

Strawchicago - Thanks for the advice. Your foliage is gorgeous!

Louislinus: I also get more blooms with horse manure, thanks to its many trace elements. Trace elements are essential for more blooms (zinc, copper, boron, manganese, etc.) These trace elements protect roses in hot & dry as well as acidic rain. Chemical fertilizer can't measure up to FRESH horse manure. These pics. are my roses with horse manure (also in bagged mushroom compost), taken at above 90 F hot and dry. Horse manure also benefit perennial flowers. Below is the most blackspot prone rose (Gruss an Teplitz, the parent of Dr.Huey), with horse manure:

Yves seedling with horse manure:

Liv Tyler with horse manure, 40+ buds in 92 F, that's when my daughter's school closed due to hot temp. end of August. They sell bagged "mushroom compost, or horse manure" quite expensive, when one can get heaps of that stuff for free at local stable. Calcium helps with heat-tolerance as well as buffers against acidic rain.

Wow! My daughter actually rides horses so fresh horse poop is something that we can get very easily. Do you just put it around the base?

No harm in piling them up to 1 foot around roses, I did that with the most blackspot-prone rose, Golden Celebration, and it's healthy even in poor drainage clay. pH of horse manure is alkaline, unless there's hay in that which makes it acidic. The horse manure I get is mixed with tiny woodchips or sawdust, which decomposes to alkaline.

It's NOT stinky like chicken manure, which burns roses in hot & dry. The best horse manure is well-composted: dark brown (almost like fluffy soil). I get horse manure from the TOP OF THE PILE, rather than the bottom. Rain water washes the salt downward, so the bottom of the heap is saltier.

strawchicago - I'm reading all of your info and I have to say I did not know those green rose slugs were from poor drainage. That would explain why I only see them on a couple of my bushes, while others have none. I do have native clay soil, but the entire top six inches of my yard was basically removed, replaced with topsoil and then over the years mulch and more topsoil. But maybe down deep, there is still clay causing drainage issues. I'm off to find a five gallon water bucket and test this out. Thank you!!!!!

Initial photos I saw anthractnose and not black spot. Anthractnose has a tan center with a dark lined edge. Black spot is exactly that, a black spot. I got rid of all my Austins due to fungal diseases and started to plant Kordes roses in their places. Much more resistant to these 2 diseases and I'd say all of them have their leaves still on the roses this late in August. Only one rose has lost most of its leaves -- Gruss An Aachen which is a pretty old floribunda. Souvenir de La Malmaison is another that loses leaves over the summer due to disease as well. Best disease resistant plants this year-- Savannah, Earth Angel, Madame Anisette and Bliss Parfuma.

Even Knock-outs in my garden get Anthractnose in late fall with tons of rain. Savannah (own-root) is 100% clean for many years, right next to the rain spout. 6th-year-own-root Poseidon always have perfect leaves despite being next to another rain spout. One time the 50-gallon rain-barrel slipped down the hill from the force of heavy rain, and dumped the entire 50-gallon on Poseidon, breaking a few branches. But Poseidon LOVED that and gave the best 2nd flush of blooms ever. Kordes roses can take lots of acidic rain, pH 4.5 here.

Jazzmom - thanks! I never knew the difference between anthracnose and bs.

Straw - what a happy accident!