I wouldn't remove the canes unless they appear damaged, too old, or the plants require pruning to maintain them within bounds (they are too large for where they are). There are stored nutrients in them which the plants will utilize to generate the new foliage. Removing the wood unnecessarily may set them back, reducing the potential flower potential, but that's up to you. You probably can't "kill" them by cutting them back, but you've already spent the time, water and fertilizer to generate that wood. Why waste it unless absolutely necessary? Kim

Where are you at? (General location.) Growing zone?

The leaves should grow back. Having experimented with many organic Blackspot products and methods I have never found one to be effective against BS here.
Excluding sulfur spray ( which I have never tried yet.)
So you may want to ask about Sulfur sprays...

Other than that you would have to resort to using chemical fungicides which may not be pet friendly?

To Roseseek: I wasn't sure it cutting them down would do any good. Can I still spray the canes now or wait till next season?

Jim1961: My zone here is 7 (Alabama-Birmingham). My hubby and I have never really been good raising roses. These we purchased 5 years ago and they haven't really every bushed out but do give beautifully shaped and fragrant blooms.

I have read alot of mention regarding the baking soda method does that work?

Thanks again

Hi Lovey, my maternal side of the family is from Birmingham, I was born there, but raised in southern Alabama and here in Los Angeles. My great grandmother and grandmother grew many roses (and MANY other things) at their homes in Homewood. You can spray any time it's needed, as long as the specific product you're using doesn't state on the label the prevailing weather conditions are inappropriate. Some of the inorganic (chemical) types state not to spray them when temperatures exceed 80 F as they can burn foliage. Serenade, an organic bacterial, doesn't have that warning and is safe to reenter the area once it is dry. Baking soda probably doesn't have that warning, either. I don't know how effective it is as I've not used it. If you try using any of the oil based products, you have to be aware of the temperatures, also as oil can literally fry the plant if the weather is too hot, intensely sunny and/or too arid. Someone living and gardening in a climate more similar to yours is going to be able to give you better advice as to what is effective and how to apply it. You have more than twice our humidity, while our intensity of sunlight, heat and rates of evaporation exceed yours. All of that makes specific products and how to use them quite different between our two gardens. Kim

The baking soda method did not work here at all...
Serenade also failed here...

I agree with Kim:

"Someone living and gardening in a climate more similar to yours is going to be able to give you better advice as to what is effective and how to apply it."

This post was edited by jim1961 on Sun, May 19, 13 at 18:03

Has anyone researched the effect of Immunox on pets? I found it very effective on powdery mildew and black spot when applied weekly. I switched to Bayer Advanced because i didn't need to spray as often--every two weeks worked fine.

Hi Lovey! If you have hybrid tea roses chances are they're never going to be really bushy in shape. Most HTs tend to be rather tall and lanky in growth habit. You said they were giving you lovely blooms though so it sounds like they're doing well other than the BS problem. Black spot happens. It's every where and if the weather conditions are right it will grow. Another "organic" fungicide you can check out is Green Cure.

Here it rains alot so organic BlackSpot products wash off and need reapplied quite often.
Even though I did that they were still not effective at all.

Don't let me discourage you though. You could still try Serenade or Green Cure and see how it does in your area & climate...
Let us know...

I'm in Atlanta. In my first year of what has become a rose addiction I planted a long bed of roses in a terrible spot and all too close together. Live and learn. All but one shared bs, even "resistant" ones. I didn't relocate them and tried everything for the blackspot, green, chemical, milk, pulling off leaves and sending them to hell in a fire, nothing really got rid of it. The plants were ugly for two years. Nice blooms though. This year I thought I would give up and let nature take its course. They all spotted up after three days of rain last month. I read some kooky thing about cornmeal and got a bunch of it that day- spread it over the entire bed like pixie dust, even the leaves. It hasn't even been two weeks yet and it looks like a completely different garden. No new leaves got bs- not even the ones touching others with it. The new growth is amazing and the leaves are getting huge! It is like the bushes just kinda turned on, like getting over a two year flu. And I don't know for sure, but I swear it looks like the infected leaves have stopped going bad- not spottng more or turning yellow- just seized the fungus. Apparently the cornmeal feeds another kind of fungus that eats the blackspot fungus. That's all I know. Do try it- you may have success since we are the same zone.

Somebody needs to be frank here. You cannot grow hybrid tea roses decently in the South or East without using a real fungicide. If you don't want to spray every two weeks, get rid of the hybrid teas and plant resistant roses like Knock Out, Mrs. B. R. Cant, etc. If you want hybrid teas badly, get a real fungicide and use it regularly. If you want hybrid teas without fungicide, you might also want a pony for Christmas.

If you decide to spray and want to spray only every two weeks, get a product containing only tebuconazole (Bayer Disease Control for Roses) or propiconazole. These should be harmless to dogs. Do not buy combo products (all-in one, 3-in-1) because they contain unnecessary extra chemicals. If you are willing to spray every week, you could try a fungicide considered "organic." Two that actually work to some extent are Soap Shield (copper) and micronized sulfur. Baking soda doesn't work here.

Oh, and if you want more bare snags, go the cornmeal route.

What's a bare snag?

I'm not opposed to spraying- I would spray plutonium back there if it works. Don't poo poo the cornmeal unless you've tried it and it failed for you. I'm doing it, after two years of everything else, and its working. Hope it works for a long time. If not, I'll try something else. But I wouldn't discredit something I haven't tried myself!

This post was edited by blackspotqueen on Mon, May 20, 13 at 12:41

thanks blackspotqueen i dusted my roses today with the cornmeal, crossing my fingers that it works. How often should I reapply?

to michaelg: as i said in my post i am new to this forum and also to roses, I always admired them but knew nothing of them. You spoke rather harshly to me and I do not appreciate it, I care about the well-fare of my pets and local wildlife to not use fungicides and my husband and myself really didn't know the difference in hybrid roses verses other kinds these were planted years ago and just recently started having problems with them.

I was hoping to find a forum where people really want to help others that are beginner gardener's.

The corn meal should have gone on top of the soil. You are the only one who can tell us if this works in your garden.

IMHO: The issue with the east coast and growing hybrid teas without using a synthetic fungicide is difficult. I cannot rely on organic means (cornmeal, sulfur, baking soda) and retain leaves on the plants. Some people say that they have been able to manage it, but it is highly dependent on the microclimate. Even with a synthetic fungicide, it may be difficult to have 100% spotless leaves. The only way to avoid fungicide use is to only grow disease resistant varieties. At this point (21 years growing), I have found zero hybrid teas that are disease resistant in my area (5 miles inland from the Atlantic, 1/4 mile south of a river).

We do want to help beginners. michaelg is a very knowledgeable rosarian. This is a tough topic, and causes widely divergent opinions.

thanks diane_nj. We honestly didn't know what hybrid meant. We bought it on sale at Wmart several years ago..and you know they don't tell you anything...we read books, online research and the roses were doing fantastic until about mid summer last year, we thought it was the climate. Now we only have knock out both double head varieties and regular. I want to keep my hybrid's mostly as a cut flower option so for me the leaves really isnt that important. When the time is right I'll hubby move them to the back side of the house to hide them...

I am sorry if I was offensive to anyone..Sometimes trying to frank can come off offensive even with the best of intentions.

Lovey, Michael, I'm sure, had no intentions of being offensive, either. As has been stated, this issue does arouse passions as well as frustrations. To all the variables already mentioned, you have to include there are FIVE, distinct races, strains, families, whatever you want to call them, of the fungi we call "black spot". How effective something is depends to a large part upon WHICH strain or strains of the fungi you have in your area, combined with your specific micro climate issues as well as how resistant to each strain the particular rose is. Add variations in culture (how sufficiently the plants are watered; how well (or badly) they are pruned; fertilized, etc.) and the fact that anything works becomes miraculous.

The Knock Out roses are as healthy as they are, in as many places as they are because their creator is the first to have actually gathered black spot infected foliage from around the country to infect his seedlings with so he could determine which ones resisted the most types, the best. Prior to his doing this, no one else had ever done it and released the results. I know of at least one other researcher who HAS done it, but he has never introduced any results of his research.

Then, there are two types of resistance. One relies upon only one gene. The other exists because of a combination of genes. Baby Love is a prime example of the first. It remains bullet proof, until the fungi mutate sufficiently to circumvent the resistance the one gene provides. Then, the plant collapses. In the Earth Kind Trials, they determined there were three races of black spot present in their test fields and were able to test the roses in the trials to determine which races each one was resistant to. That still leaves two other races these require being tested against, as well as thousands of other varieties of roses still left to be tested.

You could be completely correct that there was a change in your climate which caused your roses to suddenly succumb to the fungal attacks. Or, perhaps the fungi mutated to forms your roses couldn't resist. Or, your micro climate changed just enough to permit the fungi to flourish. Or, some other factor differed just enough to permit the fungi to take hold. Or, perhaps another race or strain of the "black spot" has "moved in to" your area? Perhaps a different type of fertilizer was used, or a different concentration of the same old type, which resulted in softer, more susceptible growth? Who knows?

These are why a rose can be rated nearly immune to "black spot" in one area of the country, then found to completely defoliate in another. It can also explain why a product, or method can be found successful here, but a total failure, there. And, vice versa. There are just so many blamed variables to throw a monkey wrench into the mix!

Rarely do i read a rose-growing thread that makes me howl with laughter, but this one and the one about Steve's deer brought on belly laughs. Lovey, no one meant to hurt your feelings....we hate blackspot too. ( still giggling about the pony.)

Sorry if I sounded snippy. I was just trying to give a realistic picture about growing blackspot-susceptible roses in the eastern USA.

I'm still waiting to hear what a bare snag is? lol
Michaelg statement sure holds true for my area I'm finding out. lol
Pony?

Bare snags sound like hard to see, leafless, prickle-laden canes, just waiting to snag your clothing or skin. Kind of like a rose "no see-um". Kim

Sometimes a few roses in my mostly-organic yard need a couple of rounds of the Bayer product (with NO insecticide!). It usually happens in the spring. I don't do preventative fungicide spraying unless the rose is new and tiny.

I don't spray every two weeks by any means! And I have a lot of BS (black spot) in my garden, but it doesn't hurt anything most of the time. When it does like yours is doing and the leaves actually drop, I put the rose on the Bayer rounds. I don't keep that up, though. After 2-3 treatments I see if the rose is good to go. Most are here, as the weather gets drier with the summer heat.

The only HTs I really grow anymore are all climbers, though, so I can't say much about HT shrubs. I do grow a lot of modern roses, and my HT climbers do really well. I guess I'm saying that you can experiment to a certain extent with how/when you spray.

I like sun and airflow here for any BS-prone rose. That's my biggest method to fight it. And rose choice, I'm sure, but I do a lot of experimenting ;) (Apparently the early 20th century HTs on their own roots hate my garden/soil/spray regime. Live and learn :D They kill themselves; I don't even have to shovel prune! ).