Well, your local critters certainly think you have good taste in plants! :|

But I feel your frustration! Sorry to hear you lost so many plants.

You can't cage everything, but you can maybe cage the little plants to protect them until they get big enough to fend off aboveground rodent attacks. Or grow them in pots until they hit a certain size.

Another thing you can try is to dedicate a bed or two to wildflowers and just seed it like crazy. Let the plants and critters fight it out and enjoy what survives.

If you have deer in your neighborhood, you might have to fence a section of yard as a deer-safe zone for roses and any other plants like that.

Ang, I don't really have a pep talk in me right now but you know I can commiserate with you. My plants finally recovered from the previous hail storm, started putting on buds, and a lot of those buds are now laying in the dirt next to the headless plants they came from. 10 minutes of hail and all those about-to-be-blooms are gone. This is the first year the weather has sucked this bad for me in spring and I'm so upset. I get how you feel and I'm so sorry that it's happening to you. It's not fair. :/

I don’t know if I have a good pep talk but I can certainly commiserate! There have been years the deer and rabbits have just demoralized me and the elk...when they came last fall/winter I was SO angry.

All I can say is to keep trying new deterrants and it will get better!

I don't know if this will be therapeutic or not, but at least someone out there has it worse. :) (Edit: I posted the wrong video; this one is more applicable.)

New neighbors with 2 cats. It's critter graveyards now...baby moles, mice and voles and the chipmunks and squirrels stay in the trees ...

Perhaps a cat? My kitty earns his keep and stays around the garden most of the day. I haven’t seen any evidence that he has actually caught anything, but the squirrels do like to scold him from the safety of the trees!

Ang and Magpie - yes, we all sympathize with you over the crappiness of rose problems. I had a whole summer of pH problems (caused by me) that killed a lot of my roses and just made the whole summer awful. So unfair...we have this extreme passion for growing roses and gardening, in general. Why does it have to be so hard?

Thanks y'all, I really appreciate the support. When your passion in life involves caring for living things an emotional rollercoaster ride comes hand in hand with it.

@Steve_M in PA thank you for the comic relief! I feel Donald's pain!

My property is half "human areas" and half wooded, and the wooded part surrounds 3 sides. It is a huge part of why I bought this house. Watching all the animals that occupy the woods is part of it's charm. I wish I could have a Disney movie moment with them where I gather them all together and explain to them which plants I need them to leave alone, and in exchange I will come out with all their favorite treats from time to time.

I'll start beefing up my deterrents and re-evaluating the areas I have certain plants and hopefully can slowly start to get things under control again.

@Ang NC_7B I’m sorry to hear you are having such a hard time this year, it can definitely be frustrating. This spring has seemed very damp so its definitely been a haven for awful blackspot.

I also live in the woods and surrounded by national forest in the mountains so we have lots of wildlife which I enjoy watching but that has involved picking some battles in the garden. For the most part, knock on wood, most of the woodland critters seem to leave my roses alone but I have had issues with the deer chomping on things (mostly in fall/winter) and bulbs being dug up so I’ve had to make adjustments. I mostly plant my veggie/food plants closest to the house since that seems to deter all but the bravest creatures and since they usually have other food sources readily available in the woods it usually keeps them from bothering the things I don't want. Bulbs are covered up with mesh but if they start getting nibbled from underground then I’ll need to buy a basket.

We also fortunately have lots of red tailed hawks and owls, and my roses and veggie gardens are planted in a very open space which I think is a deterrent to the small critters since they feel much safer around the trees. It’s probably an unpopular opinion here, but I am not a fan of cats outdoors, they can cause a lot of damage to wildlife and birds especially, plus we have coyotes, bobcats, and bears around here so loose pets is not a good idea anyways.

Its definitely frustrating and I was cursing the deer last year (we figured out leaving lights on at night deterred some of that), but I try to keep in mind that humans have taken so much habitat from wildlife, its not like wild animals know where a garden begins and ends and they have less and less space to be wild and away from people as it is. Hopefully you can find peace and be able to enjoy your garden and the animals.

Twenty years ago I planted about 2.5K roses in an acre of property, and fenced the whole thing immediately to keep the Hooved Slugs out (Deer: I have no Disney-esque fantasies about the wildlife I have to engage constantly). If you live where there are animals that eat roses, you have to be willing to engage in battle, and the battle never ends, honestly. Either you're up for the fight, or you're not. So buck up and get on with it!

As for Rose diseases - especially Blackspot - you have two choices as I see it: use fungicides every 7-10 days without fail, or remove the worst offenders and replace them with roses that have been shown to have little propensity to Blackspot. No amount of hope will make a Blackspot Martyr into a Blackspot Saint. Get rid of the ones that are constantly crippled by disease and plant better ones. There are scores of excellent roses to be grown that never, ever get Blackspot. Sounds like you need more of those. No, you won't find David Austins or most modern Floribundas/Hybrid Teas on that list (well, there are a few standouts to be had), but the genus Rosa contains a big, broad spectrum of styles, and they can all have a place in our gardens.

I have been having a rough rose season so far myself and can commiserate. I only relatively recently started growing roses and each year I feel as if I am totally winging it. This year I have thrips galore! I have had minor thrips in the past but nothing like this year. It is so disappointing to come out of a long winter, excitedly waiting for roses to bloom, only to find disfigured blooms. Also have found some signs of virus on non-rose plants and it it totally freaking me out. Is my garden doomed! AHHH!

But I know no other hobby can compare to gardening for me. It is so visually pleasing, physically invigorating and mentally stimulating. I have tried getting into houseplants but they just do not do the same thing for me. Honestly I am compelled to garden for reasons I do not even understand.

WE put out solar sonic mole/vole deterrents this year. They do seem to repel the critters but only in about a ten foot range. I would have to have so many across my garden beeping to keep the whole area critter free and I suspect then the animals would eventually adjust to the sounds.

For deer, a fenced in area has been my only satisfying solution. I regret placing it too close to trees and making it too small. Now my roses are getting more and more shade...another obstacle to overcome! But overall, at least not having deer eating the roses is a huge improvement. I have still a couple non fenced in roses that are engaged in the deer battle, with various degrees of success. The deer definitely eat clematis and roses that poke through the other side but so far they haven't jumped over the fence which is only 5 ft tall but going on year 8 strong so far.

When things are really bad, I hop onto Houzz and look at pictures of other people's beautiful flowers and dream on :D

Ang - I love what you said about having a Disney moment with the critters. :) :) Wouldn't that be wonderful. :) :)

Ang, frustrated over here too…I’m so sorry to hear that gardening is making you upset instead of relieved or at peace which is part of our gardening goal, right?

On my end, my kiddos keep hitting basketballs and volleyballs into my rose plants left and right. I keep finding broken canes everywhere. I have an inherited huge male black lab who loves marking his territory on all my foliage - burning them up and also wacking his insanely strong tail into my plants breaking off canes! He broke a big cane off my new Evelyn yesterday and i was just so ready to chase him down lol!

I keep finding blooms getting eaten off my Juliet rose plant … rodents i assume, but who knows. Thrips running rampant and so much unexpected rain here ruining blooms!

Rant over…because even with all the pain these setbacks cause, the beauty of new fresh blooms and sniffing a remarkable fragrance makes it all worth it…I just hope that you can still find joy in it and that you might find the strength to figure out ways to deal with these annoying critters!! Sending hugs from a fellow frustrated (at times) gardener!

I think that, with wildlife conflicts, it's important to remember that most of us have day jobs. For the animals, eating your best plants literally is their job. They have nothing but time and nowhere else to be. So don't feel too bad if they score a few points on you. Best to avoid the conflict if you can. Obviously, you can't (and shouldn't) fence in the entire world. But maybe just the plants you care most about.

I just want to say I feel for you Ang NC_7B ... As for Blackspot etc. I try to only grow really disease resistant ones for my area...And I'm only growing a handful of roses these days...

I have no wild or tame critter problems in my location so not much advice to give...

Between critters, disease, and bad insects it can be surely challenging....I hope you get things figured out Ang NC_7B... I see some good advice in this thread... Best wishes Ang NC_7B ....