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walknbluez

Does this look like rust disease?

16 years ago

Hello!

I've got a couple of rose bushes that although have grown pretty large (3-4 years old), are experiencing some problems. I think it is rust. I've never dealt with this before. One as shown below has yellowing leaves and when you turn the leaf over I see some orange dots (spores?). The other has some black spots like the one shown on the leaf below. We've had alot of rain in the winter and then after new leaves came in we had more rain in the spring. I used Bayer 3 in 1 systemic fertilizer about two months ago. I've read up on this but with these pics I thought I may be able to pinpoint a solution specifically for the stage that this is at. Thank you in advance for any help you can give me. - Rob

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This picture is a leaf from the rosebush right next to it but not as severe yet but alot of the leaves have similar black spots which I read appear with rust and shouldn't be confused with blackspot?

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Comments (7)

  • 16 years ago

    Yes - This rose definitely has Rust - in various stages. Very easy to tell are the rusty orange spots - they will later turn black and the leaves will start turning yellow.
    I get rid of roses that do this badly in my garden - some that only gets a little - I watch like a hawk every day - and remove every little leaf that has the tell tale orange spots - and spray to prevent the infection from spreading.
    I would remove all the affected leaves - and consider if it worth growing this particular variety - or if there are better more rust-resistant roses for your area. But if you like the rose - it will take a lot of work and spraying - and it may only keep the Rust at bay - all of us have to decide how far much work and spraying we are willing to do, in order to grow certain roses.

  • 16 years ago

    In the Northeast we go through the same thing (making the same sorts of decisions), but instead with blackspot. The climates in which blackspot and rose rust do best are usually mutually exclusive. Blackspot won't grow much in dry air, and rose rust usually won't grow much in humid air.

  • 16 years ago

    Well considering that I would have to remove three or four bushes, I would rather not do that if I can prevent it. I bought some Bayer systemic disease control which contains tebucanozale and after reading up on that I decided I want to take it back and use something organic considering that my two year old likes to pick up the wood chips and also likes to smell the roses (just playing it safe). So if you had to choose, would you treat with sulfur, copper, or the milk and water treatment I read about somewhere on this forum?

  • 16 years ago

    Welcome to the club. Rust is often seasonal with weather. We usually especially get it around Nov/Dec.

    IF you've implied that you haven't noticed it before, I would simply manage it by pulling off infected leaves early as well as leaves on the ground. You may find that the new leaves will come back ok as the weather changes.

    Bushes that are over-run with it, you may find too much trouble even if you spray.

  • 16 years ago

    I would do as lagomorphmom said, just pull off anything infected. As soon as this long blustery spring of ours passes, the Rust vanish until December. If you can, next winter right after you prune, give them a dormant spray of copper to reduce chances of infection next winter, and clean up and throw out old foliage.

  • 16 years ago

    If you do decide to use a copper spray as a foliar treatment make sure you first try it out on just one or two leaves of the roses you will be spraying, and then watch for a week or two to see what happens to those leaves.

    I know from personal experience that (in my cool humid climate, lawn sprinkler-heavy condo planting bed) some roses have absolutely zero tolerance for copper spray as a foliar treatment and will promptly drop all the leaves that the spray has touched............

    (Spraying copper on a dormant rose may well be a different thing as far as the rose is concerned. I've never used copper that way so I can't speak about it one way or the other.)

  • 16 years ago

    I purchased some sulfur powder to mix with water to spray on. Is this a good control method for now until it heats up?