New growth on rose looks strange

last year

last modified: last year

I have a question regarding rose foliage, the new leaves on one of my roses seems to be coming in pale yellowish and sick looking, slightly deformed with some stippling/dotting. I am not experienced with growing roses yet (started this year) so I am trying to figure out what could be causing it. I'll try to give relevant details. I'm in zone 7 with hot, humid summers. We are in a heat wave right now (100f temps) but the roses are getting plenty of water, and not all of them look like this. I thought from the stippling maybe it could be spider mites? But I am following a two week schedule of disease/insect control spray that lists mites as one of the pests controlled. The roses mostly have drip irrigation, I do occasionally turn misters on mid morning to water other things without irrigation. I try to do it around that time so it's not too hot but the sun dries everything fairly quickly, so the plants don't stay wet. I have seen aphids on the roses earlier in the season, and Japanese beetles, and signs of what I think are leafcutter bees, plus some chewing damage I haven't really identified yet. I give the roses a long water every 3 days or so, could I be over watering? The area isn't swampy, it's got some clay but it isn't heavy clay and it seems to drain ok. I let each rose flower a couple times then began disbudding them to encourage strong growth, and I gave each about 1 cup of alfalfa and 1 cup of holly tone after flowering (soil was neutral and holly tone was more affordable) taking care to keep it far enough away from the roots. The roses are mulched with wood chips, with space left around the base of each plant.This rose in particular was a boscobel bare root rose planted in late March, and it's been doing good until now. It gets full sun. It seems like so many problems look similar to so many other problems, I'm not sure how to tell them apart. Does anyone more experienced happen to know what this might be?I can't seem to add photos to this, so I'll try to add them to the comments below. (I can't seem to add line breaks either, sorry!)

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fig_insanity Z7b E TN

last year

last modified: last year

My first guess would have been spider mites, but I don't see any signs of webbing.

There is a slight possibility that too MUCH water is the problem. Sometimes when abundant water and high temps force new growth, you end up with anemic, chlorotic leaves (though yours would be about the most extreme case I've seen. And I'll spare you the soil science, lol). Hit the affected roses with a dose of chelated iron. If that's the problem, the symptoms will improve almost over night. In any case, the iron won't harm the roses as long as you follow the recommended application rates. It can be applied both at the roots and as a foliar spray. Since your temps are so high, I'd go with soil application, unless you do it late evening. Wet leaves overnight shouldn't be a problem, since black spot goes dormant when temps are over 90F.

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