Question
QUESTION: My rose bush is about 50 years old (my grandmothers)  It has been moved many times over the years with no problems.  a few weeks ago I trimmed off old blooms from last year as i usually do.   we has a lot of rain and my back yard was really saturated.  then it got pretty hot.  Now leaves are starting to curl up at the ends.  I have a lot of really pretty buds on that don't seam to be affected yet,and a lot of new growth.  so I don't know if I need to water or leave alone  This rose bush means a lot to me   So many thanks for any help you can give me oh and it blooms from spring to frost

ANSWER: There are some situations that roses simply won't tolerate and you will see the leaves re-act to it. Roots that have to be sitting in water for more than three days will cause the leaves to curl up. The other reason leaves curl in wet situations is because of mildew. There are two types of mildew. One is easy to see because it looks like white powder on the leaves. However the other causes the leaves to discolour into a greenish purple shadows. Check first to see if your rose has mildew on it and if it has use a fungal spray. If you are organic then try 1 tsp of baking soda to two quarts of water plus a small squirt of liquid dish soap as a sticker. Spray daily until normal growth starts. If this rose is precious to you, why not take a few cuttings off it and then you can have more of the rose. Here is how you take cuttings ti propagate a rose.

http://scvrs.homestead.com/Cuttings1.html

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QUESTION: I looked but did not see any powdery leaves.  what should I do about watering if the ground is still damp.  would a black ground cover that is supposed to keep grass out but still let water drain through be bad for it   I was going to plant a ground cover under the bush so i dug up about 6 inch deep around put down cover and filled with dirt.

Answer
Under normal weather conditions, most roses need about 5 gallons of water per week to keep the soil damp but not wet. That is roughly a bucket of water. Then they need to dry out a little. A rose plant, if it had the choice, would prefer to be dry rather than wet as too much water causes problems it can't solve. White dryness just means it will go into a dormant state and stop growing but won't die.
I wouldn't give the rose bush any water until the weather stops the heavy rain. ground covers are good for stopping weeds but rose roots have to breathe, plus there is a lot of goings on around the rose roots such as bacterial, worms etc which are breaking down nutrients so the rose root can take them up. There are two schools of gardeners, ones that like ground covers and those that don't. in my opinion, a heavy mulch of anything you can get in your area solves two problems. If it is bark mulch, it breaks down and makes more soil. Plus a mulch keeps the roots of the rose cool and damp and that is what roses want. Also saves on constant watering if the weather gets really hot. Because your rose is a very old one, it will survive poor conditions when many of the modern roses won't. Sometimes too much kindness kills a rose, as many of these very old roses are still growing on graves without any water or fertilizer and are doing okay.