Wait a bit, Florence.
If ALL the growth looks wonky, you may be having Rose Spring Dwarf. This is a virus that makes ugly first growth. Finger prune it off. The replacement growth should come back looking normal.
Rose Spring Dwarf is really ugly and it's in a lot of roses but it is a disease that the roses can live with. It gets seen rarely....but isn't terminal and replacement growth is normal.

You've got enough time before the temps rise to take a chance that it's just RSD.

RSD is kicked off by spring temperatures as yet not understood. But I've heard of it happening before in Pennsylvania.

Other evidence is that it's all over both roses. Most times, New Dawn isn't instantaneously sick in year 2. Different symptoms on different canes as the disease builds up its titer in the different canes.

Let me know how this plays out.

Ann

Rose Spring Dwarf is spread by aphids so if you keep the roses you probably will have more infected plants next year.

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20194368

Here is a link that might be useful: research paper

Henry,
I'm not sure that RSD isn't endemic in parts of the country. Do you remember Charlie from the old RGR group on Usenet? He's in PA and we were talking rose diseases at a meeting (Yes, my life is that exciting) and he was talking about seeing it in wild roses above his home...just one year when temps were a bit different from ususal.
Last spring I saw it on two HPs in my garden. It's not there this year...I said that wrong...it's doubtless there in those two plants this year, but its symptoms aren't expressed this year. I've also seen it on Rosa roxburghii (ours that came with the house..one of its suckers that we transplanted to a slightly colder place. The one in the colder place showed RSD last year, its parent plant didn't. Neither do this year.)

I have given my copy of "Compendium of Rose Diseases," away as we are downsizing, but the following link quotes from it:

http://www.hort.net/lists/inactive/rose-list/mar98/msg00112.html

"The best control measure is to rogue infected plants."

The following link gives a very recent report about its spread:

http://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/abs/10.1094/PDIS-92-12-1706B

Here is a link that might be useful: quote about what to do

Ann, thank you so much for explaining about the existence of RSD - my Graham Thomas put out weird new growth all over itself this year, after an unusually wet spell after 2 months of drought. I cut all of the weird growth off, and now it is putting out normal looking new growth. I was so afraid it was RRD after reading all of the posts about that. I had never heard of RSD - I like that one much better! Thanks again -

Jackie

from Baldo's site...
http://www.sactorose.org/ipm/83rosespringdwarf.htm

Baldo's page for many years has been "under construction" with the information actually being for a different virus.

I had some strange growth on my Celestial last year. She was new in the Spring, and put out this new growth near the end of summer. It was very weak and spindly looking growth, but not discoloured or extra thorny in any way. I was curious whether it was Rose Spring Dwarf so I was looking for some photos online. I found this one photo and was wondering what this "disease" pictured is. Is this Rose Spring Dwarf? or is it something else? If so, what?
Thanks!

Link to photo is below:

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:247150}}

cziga,
Can't tell. What happened at the apical end of that stem was aberrant growth. But it could have happened because of a very limited exposure to Round-up or a related herbicide, or to its roots getting hit with a slug of fertilizer. I have seen that symptom followed by RRD on Dr. Huey and on some other climbers.
That isn't RSD. As I understand it, RSD is a disease of early spring. For a long time, not much was known, then the folks at UC Davis had a post doc student who was very talented at culturing out and identifying viruses and she worked on RSD and did find that it was a virus.
RSD isn't just at the terminal end of a cane, but is all along the cane (and the cane, from the previous years growth is of normal growth...the only thing wierd is the earliest growth from spring.)

We have seen RRD in Canada and there's some history of it out on your Great Plains. But RRD is so unmitigatingly ugly...beyond the ugly you've shown there.

Hmmm, well I'll see if I find any growth like that this summer and perhaps post a photo of it. I don't know how else to describe it. Not quite like the photo, more just like very wilted, small, spindly growth. Almost looked too small for the rose bush. Only started after the bush finally got growing, which was about 1/2way through the summer as it was planted in the Spring. I just cut it all off and hoped for the best :) If it happens again though, I'll take a photo and post it, now that I have a digital camera that I can use.

cziga,

Possibly zinc or copper deficiency. These can be caused by excessive phosphate or lime in the soil, or may occur naturally in very poor sandy acid soils.

Small skinny cupped leaves with pale color, yellow tips, leaf tips may die. Growth point (shoot tip) dies and several small laterals develop behind it. In Z deficiency these laterals are dwarfed and create a little rosette or witch's broom.

--paraphrased from Compendium of Rose Diseases.

Ah that could be it, the soil in that area used to be very poor, almost all sand. I did my best over the past year or two to remove as much sand as possible and put in good dirt, but that takes time. I will definitely look into that - thanks :)
I'm guessing that this will eventually kill and/or stunt the rose . . . should I cut off the bad growth, or let it recover (if it comes back)?

. . . and I am sorry for sort of hijacking the thread . . . I didn't mean to take it so far off topic. I just thought what I had might be the same as what people were already talking about :)

Don't worry about hijacking a thread...often here threads wander all over the place. As long as it's vaguely rose related.

I would like to know how your rose grows this spring, cziga, because you're in a colder growing location and we do learn from each other.
If it's a soil thing, other canes on that and roses of a similar class may show similar symptoms.
Diagnoses of problems is never easy.
Those strange buds of yours do happen, but we don't have a check list yet.
OTOH, we know so much more than we did a decade ago.

Well that was the odd thing, there are other roses in close proximity, which do not show the same odd growth. However, on Celestial, every cane showed that strange mutated growth. Every one, basically. It just looked like baby growth, but it never "grew up".

I will definitely keep my eyes out this Spring and take some pictures if it shows up anywhere again!
Thanks!

Using a complete organic fertilizer like Plant Tone or alfalfa ought to mitigate any Z or Cu deficiency. Powdered soluble fertilizers also contain these elements--compare labels. I think Miracid is high in them. But in sandy soil, you don't want to use only NPK fertilizers.

Ah, that is a good idea and I didn't know that. Thanks!

cziga,
Remember we haven't ruled out herbicide or the dreaded RRD. If clear RRD symptoms present in the spring growth, you need to rogue the plant out.

If Cu/Z deficiency is suspected, I would check the pH. This plant might be sitting in a pocket of alkalinity, or it might be less tolerant of high pH than neighbor plants.