Just when things were going so well...

Blackspot season is upon me. it arrived almost overnight, and struck the back garden roses like a fungal Katrina. I kinda wish I were a sprayer some days. Today is one of those days. :blerg:

Yep , Betsy , have noticed the dreaded BS making its appearance down here as well , spray though , no way , except for smelly organic stuff !!

Yep me too girls. Seasoled everything yesterday in some attempt to combat BS. Only some bushes at this stage - Barbra Streisand and Charles de Gaulle, though young are showing all the signs of BS magnet, as per prior warnings, and Dioressence is showing more and more leaves affected (it was doing so well too). Still, new very healthy canes with lots of buds. Funnily enough, Chartreuse de Palme, next to it, which has always been the worst in the past, is still glowing with health. Fingers crossed.
Have you noticed greater/lesser disease resistance with some bushes that have surprised you?

Lol Silky , thats weird , my Chartreusse which was on its last leg this year because of BS is still okay too . Violina and Olde Fragrance my top healthy roses for BS resistance ....

Comparing apples and apples here, one Valencia had a lot, one Valencia has none. They are in different locations. One Firefighter has more than a touch, one does not - again, different locations. the Baronne EdR - one very clean, one just a bit less clean, with some lower leaves affected . And AGAIN, different location.

I think there is a BS plague-sower on the back deck where the worst affected ones are, and I suspect the biggest Valencia is the Typhoid Mary , she dropped a ton of leaves last year, re-leafed fast and bounced back uncaringly. At the time I promised myself to use lime sulphur on her when winter came. Yeah, well...

But everyone is growing and blooming and in all other respects just healthy as one could wish for.

99.8% clean: Perfume Passion/Beverly. Too bad she's so damn bubble-gum pink, because she is one tough cookie. The charming and elvish Young Lycidas is likewise technically bs-free - amazing, too, because he is right next to Typhoid Mary Valencia herself.

Not a speck: both big Paroles. Then again, I think these two are in some sort of sci-fi stasis - not a sprig of new growth, not a new bloom in sight. They just sit there, frozen in time.

EDIT: FWIW, the most extraordinary bush I've seen this year is my friend's PJPII. The thing is as full and fat as a Japanese box or a murray paniculata. Not a speck of BS either. But like my Paroles, this one has just shut down flower production.

I have to say Aoteroa is a very clean looking plant , but just so dammn slow to rebloom , it has a nice flush of blooms and then thats it until it shoots again and produces new buds, very frustrating , a good rose for somewhere thats not prime real estate i think ... Betsy i'm definately ordering Perfume Passion , a clean , perfumed rose , sounds great , and i think i can live with the colour ......

Maree, PP has won a swag of awards for Kordes in European trials - golds, silvers, most fragrant, people's choice, etc etc you name it.

This year, it has been very successful for agent Treloar's in Oz competition. This piece is pure PR, but the factual stuff may interest you

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Thanks i had a look !!!

I've heard so many good things about Perfume Passion. Pity I can't take to that shade of pink - sets my teeth on edge.

Yep, that fluoro highlighter pink is tough to love. I keep dragging the PP pot around, trying it with other roses, other flowers. It's hard to blend it - it's Lambert the Sheepish Lion among the flock of sheep, it just goes DOINGGG!

Wish I could treat it like a carnation - you know, drop food colouring in the water and watch the flower turn into amother hue.

Lol, Betsy i've got a vision of you dragging around your pots from spot to spot , just like me planting roses and then pulling them out , the latest one Lady Phelia , my fault , i was in a hurry and planted it way too low and the poor thing was stunted and miserable , so out it came !!!!! I'll give PP a go , but its going in a pot first for sure .....

Maybe the colour will change with age or heat or season or the Mayan Armageddon or...

But it isn't going to do that, is it? :sigh:

I've decided to brazen it out, and put it all by itself, proclaiming its pinkness. Solo and solitaire. Look at me! Lady Gaga!

Ah well, my friends are pretty polite.

Betsy , what do you do for a living , write poetry , feature newspaper articles ? If only my sons were as eloquent as you lol !!! They are very gifted verbally but i'm afraid they have swapped the descriptive eloquence for the descriptive slang . If there is a rose out there that is fragrant , healthy , can resist BS , free flowering , but is a hot lolly pink ,then i don't care , cause i've just been out foliar spraying with Seasol and i smell like a rotten fish now , theres always wind here and i always wear it lol .... I think my weekly spraying is working though .......

Retired journalist with ACP, maree. Freelancing a bit here and there now, mostly for Forbes in the USA. People would pay me good moiney NOT to write poetry

Betsy that explains a lot. Your posts often have me laughing out loud and I daren't have a cup of tea in hand when I'm reading them.

Betsy, could you jog my Alshiemers memory, Forbes, financial or company standings

Forbes Custom Publishing, roseman, part of Forbes Magazine group. Lifestyle stuff.

Thank You