Question
I have never before tried to grow roses.  In fact, last year was my first time to even try making a flower garden, which was a wonderful (suprising) success!  Our house burned in November.  We have moved into my brother's rent house until we decide to buy or rebuild.  I have replanted all of my bulbs from the burn house and they are all doing wonderful.  My sister-in-law planted 3 rose bushes at the end of the house that I have just recently discovered to produce amazing flowers.  I really butchered the bushes up early this spring because I couldn't even mow that end of the house because of the roses.  They were huge.  I didn't even know if the bushes would live after the chop job I gave them but I wasn't concerned because I always thought of rose bushes as thorny and lots of trouble.  Well, the bushes did not die!  Each of the three is now over 6 foot tall again and I cut several dozen roses off of them every couple of days.  They are amazing!  I bought 3 more rose bushes a few days ago.  I went out yesterday and cut a 5 gallon bucket full of roses off the 3 original bushes only to discover the largest bush has black spots all over the leaves.  I have spent this morning on the internet trying to figure out what to do about it.  I found out that my watering them 2-3 times every day is most likely what has caused this.  I will stop immediately and only water about one a week and only at the ground from now on.  However, everything I have found about the black spot thing says to get rid of the spotted leaves.  I am thinking that I will have to get rid of almost all of the leaves on the bush...won't this kill the plant?  Don't plants need their leaves to survive?  There aren't black spots on the other bushes.  Will this spread to them as well?  For my new bushes, can I plant them in the yard in full sun or do I need to make a new bed, possibly at the other end of the house?  Will they do equally as well if I replant them in large pots.  I don't know how long we are going to be living here.  We could possibly be here for a couple more years or possibly buy or start to build within the next fwe months.  Right now everything is up in the air.  If you could give me a little help, that would be great!

(PS - we live in North East Texas)

Answer
Hi Angie-

I would chop the rose bush with black spot as far down to the ground as possible - one foot off the ground (at least 6 inches above the bud graft) - and remove all the leaves.  This is very important because if you don't - the blackspot disease could spread to all the other rosebushes.  If you can't bear to prune it that low - then prune 2-3 ft. off the ground and remove all the leaves.  This should not hurt the rose - but will reinvigorate it - and it should bounce back with new healthy growth. No- a rose doesn't need its leaves to live.  I've seen a rose garden of two hundred roses pruned down to 1 ft. off the ground and they all bounce back with new vigorous growth.   From now on try to limit the sprinkler in that part of the garden and use a soaker hose on those roses - which will give them a deeper soaking that roses love.

One way to reduce blackspot disease is: don't plant roses against a house or fence - but out in the open with good air circulation, in full sun.  If you plant them in too much shade that will increase the chances of blackspot disease.  With modern hybrid tea roses this is a critical lesson to learn.  If you have hybrid musk roses (Buff Beauty, Penelope) they can take more shade and are resistant to blackspot.  For your remaining rosebushes - buy a bottle of fungicide from the garden center and spray their leaves as a precaution.  You can plant your new roses close by but make sure they are spaced far enough apart so when they reach their mature size - the foliage of each rosebush will not touch the other rosebush.  Good air circulation is a must.  Make sure they are not planted close to a wall or fence line (at least 4-5 feet away).

Two roses I recommend that are blackspot resistant/immune: Belinda's Dream and Knockout.  Try WWW.chambleeroses.com.

Roses do well in large pots (at least 24" in diameter) but remember they need watered more often - in hot weather almost every day or every other day.  Put 2-3 inches of cedar mulch on top of the soil, to help keep the soil moist.

Hope this helps-

Have fun smelling the roses-

Carlene
aka the Flowerlady