Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

What happened:

I planted around 15 big, fresh, healthy bare roots from S&W
Greenhouse, all Weeks and J&P roses in early April. I babied them.
They all showed growth and many bloomed. Then inside a month they
began dying. They show signs of cane borers, but all my roses with
thick enough canes do and always have. (My usual spray doesn't treat
borers, I guess.) They died one cane at a time, turning brown and dry.

Where they were planted:

Nice big 2X2 holes, most in a cultivated bed that I had
professionally dug and amended in early 2002. Permatil all around,
then rich black soil. No fertilizer. Bud unions set just above the
soil surface. The bed is lower than most of mine but drains just fine.
These roses never sat in water.

Cass mentioned that it might be soil related, some sort of nutrient
problem or pathogen, which makes sense--however, in the bed where most
died there are healthy, beautiful own-roots that I planted Fall 2002
that are doing wonderfully and never missed a beat, have bloomed their
heads off, etc. They are Muncy Austins, Roses Unlimited hts such as
Granada, and some Michael's roses. Penelope and Paul Neyron are the
only "oddballs" in the group and are going great guns. These roses are
planted about ten feet from the dead bareroots, all along a chainlink
fence. If anything, the property slopes toward the healthy roses, so
they might have had the best chance of sitting in water. It is
certainly true that ALL of the roses I planted opposite the healthy
ones were the new grafted bare roots, and all are dead.

The area gets six hours of sun, at least, some in the morning and some
in the afternoon.

Any ideas? I can just buy ownroots from now on, but I want to KNOW
what did these in. I have had success with bare roots before.

Thank you.

Maybe you should investigate on the rootstock.
Do you know what were they?

Jocelen.


"Shiva" wrote in message
s.com...
Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

What happened:

I planted around 15 big, fresh, healthy bare roots from S&W
Greenhouse, all Weeks and J&P roses in early April. I babied them.
They all showed growth and many bloomed. Then inside a month they
began dying. They show signs of cane borers, but all my roses with
thick enough canes do and always have. (My usual spray doesn't treat
borers, I guess.) They died one cane at a time, turning brown and dry.

Where they were planted:

Nice big 2X2 holes, most in a cultivated bed that I had
professionally dug and amended in early 2002. Permatil all around,
then rich black soil. No fertilizer. Bud unions set just above the
soil surface. The bed is lower than most of mine but drains just fine.
These roses never sat in water.

Cass mentioned that it might be soil related, some sort of nutrient
problem or pathogen, which makes sense--however, in the bed where most
died there are healthy, beautiful own-roots that I planted Fall 2002
that are doing wonderfully and never missed a beat, have bloomed their
heads off, etc. They are Muncy Austins, Roses Unlimited hts such as
Granada, and some Michael's roses. Penelope and Paul Neyron are the
only "oddballs" in the group and are going great guns. These roses are
planted about ten feet from the dead bareroots, all along a chainlink
fence. If anything, the property slopes toward the healthy roses, so
they might have had the best chance of sitting in water. It is
certainly true that ALL of the roses I planted opposite the healthy
ones were the new grafted bare roots, and all are dead.

The area gets six hours of sun, at least, some in the morning and some
in the afternoon.

Any ideas? I can just buy ownroots from now on, but I want to KNOW
what did these in. I have had success with bare roots before.

Thank you.

Rosarosam wrote:

Maybe you should investigate on the rootstock.
Do you know what were they?

Hello, Jocelen--thanks for your response. I believe
Weeks and Jackson and Perkins graft on Dr. Huey.
Most of the dead plants are still in the ground, as
I have only pulled out Arizona. Arizona is the only bare
root to die in a front, sloped bed, but was another
of the new bare roots. Do you think I ought to pull
the dead ones out to look at the roots? Arizona's
looked just like they did when I put them in. Except
dead, not just sleeping!





Jocelen.


"Shiva" wrote in message
s.com...
Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

What happened:

I planted around 15 big, fresh, healthy bare roots from S&W
Greenhouse, all Weeks and J&P roses in early April. I babied them.
They all showed growth and many bloomed. Then inside a month they
began dying. They show signs of cane borers, but all my roses with
thick enough canes do and always have. (My usual spray doesn't treat
borers, I guess.) They died one cane at a time, turning brown and dry.

Where they were planted:

Nice big 2X2 holes, most in a cultivated bed that I had
professionally dug and amended in early 2002. Permatil all around,
then rich black soil. No fertilizer. Bud unions set just above the
soil surface. The bed is lower than most of mine but drains just fine.
These roses never sat in water.

Cass mentioned that it might be soil related, some sort of nutrient
problem or pathogen, which makes sense--however, in the bed where most
died there are healthy, beautiful own-roots that I planted Fall 2002
that are doing wonderfully and never missed a beat, have bloomed their
heads off, etc. They are Muncy Austins, Roses Unlimited hts such as
Granada, and some Michael's roses. Penelope and Paul Neyron are the
only "oddballs" in the group and are going great guns. These roses are
planted about ten feet from the dead bareroots, all along a chainlink
fence. If anything, the property slopes toward the healthy roses, so
they might have had the best chance of sitting in water. It is
certainly true that ALL of the roses I planted opposite the healthy
ones were the new grafted bare roots, and all are dead.

The area gets six hours of sun, at least, some in the morning and some
in the afternoon.

Any ideas? I can just buy ownroots from now on, but I want to KNOW
what did these in. I have had success with bare roots before.

Thank you.

In article m, Shiva
wrote:

Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

I wouldn't think either factor could have been involved, since, as you
say, other roses subjected to the same conditions are thriving.

What happened:

I planted around 15 big, fresh, healthy bare roots from S&W
Greenhouse, all Weeks and J&P roses in early April. I babied them.
They all showed growth and many bloomed. Then inside a month they
began dying. They show signs of cane borers, but all my roses with
thick enough canes do and always have. (My usual spray doesn't treat
borers, I guess.) They died one cane at a time, turning brown and dry.

I'm as stumped as you are. This is all guesses. Could have been a
terrible case of the canker that infested so many roses in California
this year. I'd pull those puppies out of there just in case. That stuff
would cause the cane to blacken and die back from any cut ends. It was
bad this year, and it was insidious. When I bought my second Outta the
Blue, it was a big, healthy, fully leafed-out plant with lots of bloom.
But when I was deadheading, I found cankered ends of canes right in the
middle. By then I knew how bad it was and pruned very hard. The plants
grew and grew and flowered non-stop.

I just repotted by my Outta the Blues and found more canker creeping
down the sides of canes. So even with a new long cane 18 inches long, I
found canker on the off side of the basal -- and the canker had
extended below where the 18 in. cane broke from the basal. Once again,
I cut it all out, well below the canker. Believe me, you wouldn't know
a thing was wrong with these roses by looking at the bloom and foliage.
Oh, and I went nuclear this spring and sprayed with everything I could
find that might have some impact on canker -- macozeb, Compass,
Junction, wettable sulfur. I never saw a bit of improvement or even
arrest. The only thing that helped was a hot, dry spell.

Where they were planted:

Nice big 2X2 holes, most in a cultivated bed that I had
professionally dug and amended in early 2002. Permatil all around,
then rich black soil. No fertilizer. Bud unions set just above the
soil surface. The bed is lower than most of mine but drains just fine.
These roses never sat in water.

Cass mentioned that it might be soil related, some sort of nutrient
problem or pathogen, which makes sense--however, in the bed where most
died there are healthy, beautiful own-roots that I planted Fall 2002
that are doing wonderfully and never missed a beat, have bloomed their
heads off, etc. They are Muncy Austins, Roses Unlimited hts such as
Granada, and some Michael's roses. Penelope and Paul Neyron are the
only "oddballs" in the group and are going great guns.

Are the oddballs part of the batch of BR's, the remainder of which
died? I don't understand.

These roses are
planted about ten feet from the dead bareroots, all along a chainlink
fence. If anything, the property slopes toward the healthy roses, so
they might have had the best chance of sitting in water. It is
certainly true that ALL of the roses I planted opposite the healthy
ones were the new grafted bare roots, and all are dead.

So this is one big raised bed? What is the retaining material? Doesn't
NC have a county extension that does free or cheap soils tests? What do
you have to lose? Was soil imported for the bed?

Pull out the dead dozen and see if you find anything of note on the
roots. Or even if they have roots.

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 21:19:06 -0700, Cass
wrote:

In article m, Shiva
wrote:

Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

I wouldn't think either factor could have been involved, since, as you
say, other roses subjected to the same conditions are thriving.

I disagree (but I'm just a novice).

It sounds to me like a case of drowned roots. If the bare roots were
planted in March and the rains immediately started and didn't stop for
months, then the bare roots would have never gotten the chance to
breathe (literally) and grow properly.

Established root systems would grow far deeper and more extensive and
could probably thrive in such conditions. However, a one month old
plant doesn't have any roots deeper than about 2 feet, and at that
depth *all* of the soil would be sodden.

Just my two cents...

In m Shiva wrote:
What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.

Shiva, too much early watering has killed rose bushes for me. My
drainage sounds worse than yours, having predominantly clay soil, but
I've found that a little moisture is much better than a lot.

I've got (possibly) some marginal benefit by using plant starter
solution on my new plantings.

Having said all that, it looks like my bare root Benjamin Britten and
Ernest's Blue roses are going to suffer infant mortality. This I blame
entirely on the supplier, who shall remain nameless for now. The bushes
were too tiny to be 2 years old - a case of rushing new varieties to
market, I would suspect. Their root systems were barely there. Not
happy....

Dig them up and look at the roots. I suspect that they will show that there
was not any new root development. This can a result of several factors the
first being rain and saturated soil, another is that the root stock was
damaged by handling and transportation from the grower.

Dr. Huey is a very hardy root stock, if you dig them and find that the root
system is healthy, the grafts were probably damaged and they existing canes
simply used their store of food and then died. Again this is usually a
result of poor handling.

Examining the root system will most likely give you the best indication of
what caused the canes to die.

Tim

dave weil observed after I blathered:
Cass wrote:
wrote:

Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

I wouldn't think either factor could have been involved, since, as you
say, other roses subjected to the same conditions are thriving.

It sounds to me like a case of drowned roots. If the bare roots were
planted in March and the rains immediately started and didn't stop for
months, then the bare roots would have never gotten the chance to
breathe (literally) and grow properly.

Established root systems would grow far deeper and more extensive and
could probably thrive in such conditions. However, a one month old
plant doesn't have any roots deeper than about 2 feet, and at that
depth *all* of the soil would be sodden.

You make a good case for for drowning as the most likely cause. I
didn't find the exact numbers, but it looked like inches of rain each
month, April, May, June and July were way above normal.
http://www.weatherequipment.com/forecast.htm

But Shiva said the bed drains, so I was taking her word for it. And..
I'm still surprised that she didn't see signs of stress in the
established plants in the ground.

If, in general, the subsoil gets even wetter than the topsoil because
that's where all the water drains *to,* how do you explain that? And,
even large roses tend to have the vast majority of their root system in
the top 2 feet of soil.

None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots
right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from
high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon
plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it
on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot
in different topsoil in a larger pot.

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 09:51:08 -0700, Cass
wrote:

dave weil observed after I blathered:
Cass wrote:
wrote:

Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

I wouldn't think either factor could have been involved, since, as you
say, other roses subjected to the same conditions are thriving.

It sounds to me like a case of drowned roots. If the bare roots were
planted in March and the rains immediately started and didn't stop for
months, then the bare roots would have never gotten the chance to
breathe (literally) and grow properly.

Established root systems would grow far deeper and more extensive and
could probably thrive in such conditions. However, a one month old
plant doesn't have any roots deeper than about 2 feet, and at that
depth *all* of the soil would be sodden.

You make a good case for for drowning as the most likely cause. I
didn't find the exact numbers, but it looked like inches of rain each
month, April, May, June and July were way above normal.
http://www.weatherequipment.com/forecast.htm

But Shiva said the bed drains, so I was taking her word for it. And..
I'm still surprised that she didn't see signs of stress in the
established plants in the ground.

Having seen the volume of rain that those folks got this year, I doubt
that the word drains really applies. As far as I know, it was
literally raining just about every day. We got tons of rain, but we
seemed to have periods of dryness in between (and I don't think that
the eastern seabord got much respite - it always seemed to be either
raining or drizzling). It was almost perfect for our lawns. I don't
think I had to water *once* during June and July, and this is almost
unheard of. Of course, now, we're in the dry, hot dog days of August,
although we got a much needed cloudburst last night.

If, in general, the subsoil gets even wetter than the topsoil because
that's where all the water drains *to,* how do you explain that? And,
even large roses tend to have the vast majority of their root system in
the top 2 feet of soil.

I'm thinking that with a larger root mass, there's more of a chance to
get *some* oxygen exchange - plus, there's some acclimation that's in
play (almost one of those elusive "life force" issues - the more
established the plant, the harder it is to kill it with the same
conditions that affects younger, less-established plants. (hey, I'm
jus making some uneducated guesses here).

None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots
right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from
high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon
plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it
on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot
in different topsoil in a larger pot.

I had good luck with directly-planted bare root Belamis. I'll try to
post pics. More later...

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 13:57:38 -0500, dave weil
wrote:

None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots
right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from
high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon
plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it
on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot
in different topsoil in a larger pot.

I had good luck with directly-planted bare root Belamis. I'll try to
post pics. More later...

http://www.pbase.com/teleburst/roses

The first pic is the first flush, the second, the mounded bed right
before uncovering, and the third, the second flush from a couple of
days ago.

These bare roots went directly in the ground the day after Memorial
Day of this year.

In article , dave weil
wrote:

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 13:57:38 -0500, dave weil
wrote:

None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots
right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from
high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon
plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it
on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot
in different topsoil in a larger pot.

I had good luck with directly-planted bare root Belamis. I'll try to
post pics. More later...

http://www.pbase.com/teleburst/roses

The first pic is the first flush, the second, the mounded bed right
before uncovering, and the third, the second flush from a couple of
days ago.

Nice roses. You put 3 in a wankle engine shaped bed? And I really like
that site for posting pix. Loads fast, easy to navigate.

These bare roots went directly in the ground the day after Memorial
Day of this year.

They obviously performed beautifully. Many people *do* put them
directly into a nice prepared prepared bed. I don't do it here because
late bareroot season here coincides with seasonal winds that last for 3
weeks with no rain right after the rainy season. Soils are still cold,
so it's hard to get roots growing in the ground. Young plants crisp up
fast under those conditions. OTOH, a pot allows the soils warm, the
roots to grow, and the rosarian to closely monitor a number of roses in
a single location.

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 10:33:01 -0700, Cass
wrote:

In article , dave weil
wrote:

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 13:57:38 -0500, dave weil
wrote:

None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots
right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from
high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon
plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it
on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot
in different topsoil in a larger pot.

I had good luck with directly-planted bare root Belamis. I'll try to
post pics. More later...

http://www.pbase.com/teleburst/roses

The first pic is the first flush, the second, the mounded bed right
before uncovering, and the third, the second flush from a couple of
days ago.

Nice roses. You put 3 in a wankle engine shaped bed?

Why yes I did. Great pickup (you, not the RX-7 g).

And I really like that site for posting pix. Loads fast, easy to navigate.

I do too. It used to be free, but he's finally had to start charging.
$22 a year for 100 mb. I've currently got about 160 mb online and I
haven't been limited or charged extra.

It's actually a "photographer's" site, not an on-line storage site.
Lots of great photographers have galleries there. I basically use it
in lieu of a personal web site to post photos (mostly for sharing pics
with others, not showcasing my awesome photography skills g) I also
like the fact that you can post full sized photos as well (not being
limited to a certain size like at some online photo sites). I
downsized all of my rose shots simply because I knew that I was out of
room.

These bare roots went directly in the ground the day after Memorial
Day of this year.

They obviously performed beautifully. Many people *do* put them
directly into a nice prepared prepared bed. I don't do it here because
late bareroot season here coincides with seasonal winds that last for 3
weeks with no rain right after the rainy season. Soils are still cold,
so it's hard to get roots growing in the ground. Young plants crisp up
fast under those conditions. OTOH, a pot allows the soils warm, the
roots to grow, and the rosarian to closely monitor a number of roses in
a single location.

Have you ever done the mounding thing with bare roots? I'd think this
would offer sufficient protection from wind and dryness. I've always
had great luck with this method. Having saidthat, one should do what
one is comfortable with and what works in their climate.

The frustrating thing about mounding is wondering how they're doing
under the mulch. But it's really cool when you finally uncover the
plants.

One thing I *didn't* do that I always have done in the past is cutting
the first buds. Usually with hybrid teas, you get one or two buds, but
in this case, the first flush all happened at once and I got over 30
buds on the three plants. I figured that the plant knew what it was
doing chuckle.

I'm guessing that I'm going to have one more flush before it's all
over. The downside to such massive bud growth so early is that when we
had a big rainstorm a couple of days ago, it caused weepy blooms the
next day (because there just isn't the substance to the stems yet).

Boy, I really like this plant a lot.

"Cass" wrote in message
.. .
snipped]

Nice roses. You put 3 in a wankle engine shaped bed?

Wow! I never thought I'd see the day when *anyone* managed to use "roses"
and "wankle engine" in context!!! Kudos to Cass!!!

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC

In article , dave weil
wrote:

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 10:33:01 -0700, Cass
wrote:

In article , dave weil
wrote:

Have you ever done the mounding thing with bare roots? I'd think this
would offer sufficient protection from wind and dryness. I've always
had great luck with this method. Having saidthat, one should do what
one is comfortable with and what works in their climate.

I always mound bareroots. I mound in pots too, using the cardboard
collars. But my yard isn't flat and it's very exposed. And it's March
1, not June 1. Big difference.

One thing I *didn't* do that I always have done in the past is cutting
the first buds. Usually with hybrid teas, you get one or two buds, but
in this case, the first flush all happened at once and I got over 30
buds on the three plants. I figured that the plant knew what it was
doing chuckle.

You mean you disbud bareroots? Not me. I sometimes disbud OR's, tho, if
they are very small and clothe themselves in buds. And I disbud plants
that aren't doing well, if I notice.

I'm guessing that I'm going to have one more flush before it's all
over. The downside to such massive bud growth so early is that when we
had a big rainstorm a couple of days ago, it caused weepy blooms the
next day (because there just isn't the substance to the stems yet).

"Yet. " Heh, just how many roses have your grown that get more
substance in the stems as they get bigger? So far the count in my
garden is approximately 0 to 259.

In article , Anne
Lurie wrote:

"Cass" wrote in message
.. .
snipped]

Nice roses. You put 3 in a wankle engine shaped bed?

Wow! I never thought I'd see the day when *anyone* managed to use "roses"
and "wankle engine" in context!!! Kudos to Cass!!!

cackle You caught me. And I misspelled it. Wankel rotary engine. I
thought Dave would like it.