The canes have stored energy, so I wouldn't prune unless they were tall. Maybe remove the twiggy tips. Blackspot is not systemic-- it spreads externally from leaf to leaf. The plants will refoliate in a couple of weeks and then probably get more blackspot unless the leaves are protected in advance and constantly by an effective fungicide.

Thank you for the advise. The canes are all really green but they just look so pathetic with hardly any leaves. Its been very rainy and now super hot and humid in the
Chicago area and the blackspot just took over so quickly. I'll just clean up all the bad stuff, lightly prune any dead twigs, water good and hope for the best.

A little over a month ago I was fighting powdery mildew real bad. Before I joined this forum I looked online for a solution which I found was a vinegar solution. Well it ruined most of my roses with either brown leaves everywhere or bare branches. The roses looked terrible! I almost wanted to just give up. But now my roses look 75 percent better with great new foliage and the flowers buds are now coming. So don't give up, they will look great soon again!

ocbrain, did the powdery mildew ruin the plants or the vinegar mixture? If the mixture, please let us know what recipe we shouldn't use!

Allison

Kforrest, you will be amazed at how well your roses can recover from blackspot and grow new leaves. I won't advise you on what to use as a preventative, but your roses can recover. Good luck! My first planted roses were Blue Girls, and the never broke dormancy. I still don't know what I did wrong, but I have learned a lot since.

It was the mixure. After 10 minutes of spraying my bushes, the leaves began to turn brown-black & anything that got on the rose petals turned blue & purple. I got this recipe off of ehow.com & just soaked my bushes like it said not to be afraid of doing.

Step 1
Examine rose bush for evidence of mildew. The mildew will tend to be concentrated on newer growth, but may affect other leaves and stems as well.

Step 2
Prune or pluck older growth that appears to be densely covered by the mildew, so as to reduce the surfaces to be treated.

Step 3
Mix up the following solution in a quart or half gallon sized spray bottle.
Water to equal 80% of capacity of the container.
1 Tbsp. baking soda per quart
1 tsp. cooking oil per quart
1 tsp. dish detergent
1/4 C. white or cider vinegar per quart

Step 4
Replace cap on sprayer and spray the rose bushes thoroughly. DonÂt be afraid to drench the foliage as much as possible.

Step 5
Repeat each day until you see the absence of mildew on the plants.

The wacky recipe calls for 4x the concentration of baking soda commonly used in fungicide sprays, and that lower concentration itself sometimes burns foliage in hot weather. The product of the reaction with vinegar would be sodium acetate with baking soda left over. I guess we can infer that sodium acetate kills rose leaves.

Wow, thanks everybody for all the encouragment! I'll baby them and hope for the best. I have been using a organic spray purchased at Whole Foods. I think its called Rose Pharm.

Greenhaven - so sad you had no luck with the Blue Girl. It was my first rose. They were sooo pretty. Beautiful silvery lavender color. Oh, I hope they come back...

I've always used vinegar to control weeds or kill grass growing inbetween cracks in concrete. I would never use it on my roses, in any amount.

Maybe that recipe should have been called "how to kill your roses", lol!

I'm with cjolliff! I have always known to use vinegar to kill weeds, so I wouldn't ever put it on my roses knowingly! It makes me wonder if someone mistakenly put that recipe on there!

Shelly

kforrest, it's the waiting that's a drag! Thankfully they will be back with a vengeance in no time. A watched pot never boils :-)

ocbrian, I use 1 teaspoon packing soda, few drops good shampoo('cause I can't tell whats in dishsoap anymore!) 1qt. water and spray it on for Powdery Mildew. You probably already know the recipe. You must have been in disbelief watching the plants go down! Arrg.

Allison

kforrest, if you are going to stick with organic fungicide, you'll need to apply it as soon as some leaves have expanded and repeat weekly except during hot, dry periods. There will be a risk of burning the foliage with these methods. See the FAQ of the Organic Roses Forum.

kforrest, if you are going to stick with organic fungicide, you'll need to apply it as soon as some leaves have expanded and repeat weekly except during hot, dry periods. There will be a risk of burning the foliage with these methods. See the FAQ of the Organic Roses Forum.

Well, thanks so much for the positive advice! My 3 roses lost ALLl their leaves, I pruned them back by 1/3 and today I notice new growth!! Little bud like things now growing on the green canes. A few tiny leaves as well. I have hope!

Agree with michaelg. You have to start fungicide treatments early in the season. If you wait until you see blackspot, then it is harder to control. Just because the early growth is clean doesn't mean that blackspot isn't lying in wait just ready to strike. Good luck.

Can you move the roses to a dry location when it rains? I'd think that keeping the leaves dry would be quite effective.

I understand your desire to use the green approach. However, if you are in a severe black spot region like we are in the Mid Atlantic States, you need to use the hard stuff. My roses totally defoliate here unless I use Mancozeb, Banner Max or Bayer. Nothing else works.

If you spray 3 potted roses with a trigger spray bottle of Bayer fungicide, and are just moderately careful, the environmental impact will be zero.

Again, this is so wonderful -- the advice and info sharing. I'll get some of the bayer spray and start regular spraying as soon as there is foilage to spray!

Thanks All -- I'll keep posting as to the progress.

Well...I'm glad I did not give up!!

All 3 bushes were completely leafless. I cut them back to about 2 feet (they are in pots by the way).

Sprayed 2x now with Rose Pharm spray diluted half with water.

All 3 show significant regrowth! Especially the Pascali. Apricot candy is running 2nd and even has a small bud. Blue Girl is lagging in a slow 3rd but everybody says this is a difficult rose to grow. It is SOO darn pretty though.

Without this forum I would have tossed these roses in the dumpster a month ago.

Now I have hope they may rebloom and even make it through the winter.

This thread has been very insightful to me also. I started growing roses 2 years ago and have been lucky to not get blackspot yet without spraying. But, the more roses we plant, that may change. Thanks!

Jeez, I just heard thunder and looked outside we are getting hit hard by pounding rains and very high winds. Gotta go and check things out.

I agree, the info has been invaluable. This is my first time with full size roses on the balcony. I receive only about 4-5 hours of sun and I KNOW this is less than roses desire, but over the years I've tried almost everything out there including full sun plants and I always manage to get some degree of success. My hybrid tea experiment may not work out in the long run but it has been really fun trying! I'm committed now to trying to get these through the winter. I'd say to anybody to "hang in there".

If this is an apartment, your only chances of getting them through the winter is if there is storage in an underground garage at 20-40 degrees, or possibly if you capture the heat leaking from the apartment wall with insulation to the outside.

It is a condo. I have not yet devised a complete plan for the winter yet. I've got several options....I can pull them back from the edge of my balcony up next the the brick wall where my furnace is. It stays pretty warm there. They will be protected from wind/snow for the most part as I have a large overhang and they will be protected from direct wind and snow. Would you cover the pots with those domes, or maybe mulch over the top? I can also move them to my brothers basement which would definatley be more of a hassle but worth it if necessary.
What about actually taking them out of the pots after a hard pruning and storing them in the refrigerator and then replanting like a bareroot in the spring?

Your refrigerator idea is interesting, but I question whether it is cold enough to maintain dormancy. Professional cold storage is done at around 32 degrees.

The brick wall sounds promising as a substitute for ground heat, but you would have to insulate a space including the pots with a wall segment, excluding the outside air and probably the floor. The rootball needs to stay above 20 degrees.

UUUUGGGHHH!
My 3 hybrid teas had recovered nicely from blackspot, where refoliated (is that a word?) and all of a sudden today I notices some dying leaves. Guess what? Aphids everywhere. They may not do serious damage to a old/large rose but let me tell you they have really done some damage to the new tender growth on these! Sprayed with RosePharm diluted with water. We'll see.....