You're in the SF Bay Area, and you have blackspot????

I gardened professionally there for 20 years and the only time I saw blackspot was when it rained late in spring, like May, or in overhead watered gardens. Literally, I only knew blackspot from pictures in textbooks and I was a serious rosarian.

Are you overhead watering your roses? or have weather patterns changed drastically since I left 10 years ago?

Water the soil, not the roses, and clean up infected leaves, and spray with a good fungicide like BannerMaxx or Fertilome. You shouldn't have to spray regularly in that climate, but you will have to do at least one spray now as it's gotten so bad. Looks like you have powdery mildew coming on too, with the curly leaves. Rust comes from dry, nitrogen-deficient soil so you may want to look at your watering and fertilizing and mulching habits. Rust and PM are common in your area but you should NOT be getting blackspot!

In your area you should water slowly a couple times a week, and fertilize every 4-6 weeks into September. A good thick mulch of compost or wood chips, with a drip soaker underneath, is what I used when I lived there. I dormant sprayed with lime sulfur every January and then did not have to spray again until August when PM started up as the nights got longer and cooler. I got decent results with just a horticultural oil/baking soda mixture but I forget the recipe right now.

Your roses are putting out new growth so they want to do well for you, they just need some help.

Reg, I lived in Berkeley, in the fog belt, and I certainly had some blackspot on all my roses (I only had a few -- a couple Austins, a Cl. Royal Sunset, a Buff Beauty, and a couple of HTs in containers.)

You wouldn't see it in the "outer" Bay past the hills, but the fog zone is humid a lot in the summer!

I'd ask where have you gotten roses in from recently? You didn't get any from MerryGro by any chance last Nov did you? They sent me roses with both BS and chili thrips. These showed up in my April flush and the chili thrips are sporadic again here and there now.

Some of your wrinkled green growth and red growth and curled up, bumpy looking like leaves and deformed leaves look like chili thrips as part of your problem. BS the other part.
Leslie

I suppose the wrinkled, bumpy growth is caused by powdery mildew. The lower two roses have severe blackspot, severe mildew, and severe rust (I guess rust, it's rare here and I've never seen the orange on the top surface of the leaf). Evelyn has severe mildew and probably blackspot on the green leaves that we don't see.

Should we be worried about rose rosette disease, with the very red stems, crumpled leaves, and zig-zag growth?

Aprille, if you aren't going to spray, apparently you need to select varieties that are very disease resistant in the coastal California climate. I would be tempted to cut the sick plants all the way to the ground, clean up the area, and let them start over. You still have four months' growing season ahead.

Ask Berndoodle and others around there what are some roses you can grow without spraying, or else you can start spraying regularly with Bayer Advanced Disease Control, which is effective against BS, PM, and rust.

The first and second photo looks like a chemical burn to me. I had this happen when the chemlawn guy got too close to one of my roses. It looked EXACTLY like your first two photos.
I left them alone and they are fine now.

The others look like Blackspot to me. I do not as a strict rule overhead water. I schedule spray regularly for blackspot. I use a preventative as well. Even if they look clean of BS don't go off the schedule. I have occasionally been pressed for time and have given in to overhead watering and I always end up w/ BS!

Hope things clear up for you!

Betty

Rust, Blackspot, possibly Powdery Mildew, and maybe some heat toasting.

Strip-and-spray-time, or else you'll have to get rid of the most diseased ones and go with more resistant varieties. If they are young plants they may mature into better disease resistance--if they are already well established, well, a Ruster is often always a Ruster. :(

FWIW, Evelyn mildewed here -- and that was back when we sprayed.
It mildewed on all of the new growth, at all seasons of the year.
That's one of the main reasons it left here long ago.

There are a few Austin roses which grow well for us in our coastal area without sprays.
Evelyn ain't one of them.

Jeri (Coastal Ventura County, SoCalif)

Thank you all - yes I hand-water, so the plants sometimes get over head watered - but I've never had the problem like this before, where the roses are so diseased from day 1. We are planning on doing drip irrigation later this year once I've figured out spots for most of the roses in pots - these one's are all in pots ... that could be part of the reason. My roses get a bit neglected during the summer since both girls are home and I hardly have time to get out and take care of them.

Leslie, no I did not get any roses from MerryGro.

Jeri - maybe I'll just have to get rid of Evelyn then - there are plenty of other beautiful Austins out there ..

Thanks again everyone, input is much appreciated.

Aprille

Aprille,
If the problem roses are in pots, perhaps you need to double-check and make sure the pots are draining well. If the pots are clogged, that would cause waterlogging and some of the problems you list.

One other consideration--how much sun are the potted roses getting? Minimum of 6 hours, I hope. If they get less than that, that almost guarantees you will have more disease problems than usual.

That's all I can add to the discussion other than to second (and third) the advice above to make sure you buy highly disease-resistant roses if you do not intend to spray.

Hope that helps.

Kate

You have some really major fungus problems here. BS, PM, and Rust are all very obvious.
You should either get different more resistant varieties and/or start up a responsible spray routine to keep this under control.
I would recommend you start by pruning and stripping off the infected foliage then start the spraying routine.
Yes, you can spray and depending on what you use and how, still be environmentally conscientious in my opinion.
And best of all, you can have beautiful, healthy roses to enjoy.
John

Actually, the easiest way to solve the problem is to grow more-resistant roses.

There are hundreds of easily-obtainable roses which will grow healthy without sprays in Aprille's environment.

Jeri (SoCal)

Aprille, I don't spray either. I just simply test roses
out. If within two years they get continuous disease
problems, I no longer want them in the garden. Jerijen is
right. There are so many roses that stay healthy, why
bother with ones that are too much work. I just like to
water, feed them and deadhead. Beyond that, I don't want
to work that hard. I love roses that provide easy beauty.
Sometimes though, a rose starts off being a problem and
by the next season, becomes healthy.

I don't like rust at all. I don't mind a touch of it here
and there during the winter months, but I won't have a
bush in the garden that is a rusty mess. All my current
roses have no rust problems, except Sterling Silver and
Marilyn Monroe have some. They are on the "you better
shape up list".

I bought an Evelyn own-root from Heirloom this season.
All the talk about her blooms made me want to try her
out. So far, so good. I'm hoping an own-root version
stays healthier. I'm aware this cultivar may be problematic
for me. Time will tell.

Also, make sure that your potted roses are not too close
together and that they have good air circulation. That
might really help. Good luck Aprille!

Well I've decided to give them one more year and see how they do - all except for Vavoom - it's going - I'm not so crazy about it. I do have a few roses in the garden that get a touch of rust and mildew and black spot - but nothing has been as bad as these - and I agree with Jeri - there's just too many good roses out there to stress over the one's that don't make it - I have kids and pets, all who love being out in the garden with me - so I will not spray.

Thank you everyone for your advice. It was greatly appreciated.

Aprille

Hi Aprille~

I'm originally from Pleasant Hill, Inland Bay, where it gets very hot, plus foggy sometimes. We certainly fought all the fungus issues there. I don't know why there's an idea that think there's no fungus in the inland Bay Area? Growing up my mom used to "dust" remember that? She had a huge Rose Garden that she looked after and had BS and powdery mildew sometimes. It sounds like you have gotten great advice. I have an Angel Face Standard that I'm having problems with. Just can't clear up the BS on it. Tried everything. I bought it that way thinking I could clear it up. I will keep trying. I will NEVER buy an obviously sick rose again!!!

Good luck to you with your sick roses! :o)