on many of my roses, the first potential blooms are stunted in opening and are very hard to the touch. i cut them off so that the secondary buds open faster, as they look and feel normal. outside of this all of them look quite good considering the terrible spring we have had here. what does that signify? we do not have thrips or JB's here either. just a lot of aphids and a lot of little caterpillars this year. the caterpillars i know are destroying a lot of the foliage, but i don't know what would cause every first flush bloom on my Falstaff for instance, to be halted in a semi-state of opening, all the while being hard as a rock.