Hi Jill: I checked on rose chafers, here's some info: "The rose chafer, Macrodactylus subspinosus, is commonly found in many areas of Minnesota, particularly areas with sandy soil. It is a pest on many different types of flowers, fruits, trees and shrubs."

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/rose-chafers/

Some questions before I can proceed. Do you have sandy, loamy, or clay soil? What's your annual rainfall, and what planting zone and state you are in? When the bushes are 5 to 15 years old, drastic pruning is needed in late fall, to ensure a good spring flush. Pruning in late fall (right before Thanksgiving) is safe, since Old Garden Roses CANNOT BE PRUNED IN SPRING, only modern roses (hybrid tea & floribunda) can be pruned in spring.

Things that stop roses from blooming, or zero blooms:

Rose midge will wipe out the blooms. Google rose midge in this forum, and you'll find some info.

1. Fertilizer and water are lost in sandy soil. Solution: Organics like leaves, alfalfa hay will retain water, and enrich the soil.
2. Rose chafers and rose midge can be destroyed by DRASTIC pruning right before winter, put all infected canes in yard-waste-pickup. Then put FRESH mulch NOW to stop the pests from hatching in spring.

For more info. on fertilizer to increase blooming, see the thread below:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3165000/for-straw-help-please?n=72

The two long cold winters in a row caused less blooms for me.

More Sun......more blooms.

Also, With a lot of high nitrogen manuer it causes the plants to grow big with hardly any blooms. Is it possible there was high nitrogen fertilizer? That is why it is important to balance all the 46 nutrients.

I think rock phosphate gave me many blooms.

Compost

Straw & Sam covered the bases...

Sounds like a possible Rose Midge problem to me on your 0 blooming roses...

Thanks everyone. Our soil is very sandy but my gardens have good topsoil compost mix. I live in southern Ontario Canada which I believe is zone five. The insect population was much smaller this year due to a ridiculously cold winter last winter so I thought the roses would do better than usual but it was the opposite. I have pruned them and will hope for a better year next spring.

Are they grafted roses or own root? If rootstock is taking over, could be the issue for you.

I am not an expert on the subject but I am a little curious that how a pest (any pest for that matter) that existed within limits caused such a damage that there were zero blooms? Can we also consider the possibility of something happening drastically wrong with soil composition, texture and pH level (along with information on use of various fertilizers)?

regards

Thank you, Dingo, for an excellent viewpoint. Some info: "Hortico in Canada uses Rosa Multiflora seedlings for most of their stock, one seedling per grafted rose, in order to minimize the incidence of mosaic virus (a disease that is transmitted from the rootstock to the rosebush, or vice versa)."

Since Jill lives in southern Ontario Canada, there's a good chance that the hybrid teas and floribundas are grafted on multiflora .. if the winter kills off the true rose, the rootstock will take over, and the below shows how multiflora looks like: small leaves, with single-petal white flowers:

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=56739

Old Garden Roses are often sold as own-roots, so they stay true to their genes. But hybrid teas and floribundas are often grafted .. and if they don't bloom, it's because the root-stock takes over. Multiflora-rootstock is ONCE-BLOOMING, single-white petals, in spring only.

Here in my Chicagoland: local stores sell roses grafted on Dr. Huey, which is a ONCE-BLOOMING single-petal, dark-red bloom. Three of my neighbors have Dr.Huey-rootstock take-over with harsh winter: 1) the 1st one pruned and fertilizer the rootstock, really pretty Dr. Huey-blooms in spring.

1. the 2nd one doesn't prune her roses. Dr. Huey becomes super tall, like 11 feet, with a few red-blooms (single-petals).
2. the 3rd one is a fore-closured house, Dr. Huey becomes very tall, zero blooms for many years.

Good point Dingo... I grow all own root roses so never even thought of that angle...lol

Great additional info Straw!

Excellent. So it is the root stock that has taken over. Looks quite likely. Thanks Straw and dingo2001

Mine are mostly own root too, but I have some grafted from Brecks crazy sale last spring. Just odd that no blooms at all for Jill.

I think I am going to move the roses this spring. I have two others on the north side of my house ( they still get tons of sun as we are on a farm and our property is huge) that did fine this summer. I have never had this happen before and was suspecting the soil has to be an issue. The wild roses, which grow everywhere here, we're fine so they can stay where they are. I don't and never have used fertilizers other than compose that we make here. They have always been very happy and beautiful before. Thank you so much for your help.

Ok Jill but if you continue to have problems in the future consider the rose midge or if they are grafted roses maybe the root-stock took over as Dingo suggested...

I wish you the best of luck! Happy Thanksgiving! And have a great Christmas & New Year holiday!

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Rose midge appears to be a native insect to North America. It was first detected in 1886 in New Jersey by a greenhouse rose grower and since that time it has been recognized in many of the eastern and Midwestern states as well as in Oregon, Washington and Canada.

Question:

For the last couple years, on my seemingly healthy rosebushes, the early new buds wilt, turn brown or black and fall off, and the stem and foliage right there also turns black. There are no marks or damage further down the stems and I don’t see any bugs. I lose all the flowers for the summer but the problem seems to stop later in the year and I get some fall blooms. What’s going on and what can I do about it?

Answer:

Sadly, it sounds as though your garden has been infested by rose midge, a very challenging creature to manage. The symptoms you describe are exactly the kind of damage they cause.

The rose midge is a very tiny white fly larva that feed in clusters at the bases of rosebuds. It has a very short life (2 weeks) half of which can be spent in the soil below the plants. You want to destroy the midges that are on your plants and you want to prevent the generations of larvae that are form in the soil from coming up onto the plants.

There are no chemical treatments available in Canada, but there have been several studies conducted at various institutes and universities trying to find an organic solution to the problem. At this point the primary recommendations are 1) to prune off and destroy the damaged parts as soon as you notice problem (do not put the material in your compost), 2) make sure the ground around the plants is kept very clean with no plant debris and 3) to cover the soil around the plants with plastic (garbage bags or the like). If you cannot get the problem under control with these methods, you may have to resign yourself to the loss of spring and summer flowers. As you’ve noticed, the midges usually disappear by September.