I think the buds got nibbled on, Lisa. Rabbits?

It looks munch on in my opinion. I caught a cut worm eating my buds last year. It was very cloudy so he had not crawled down yet. If I had not seen him I never would have believed it.

Oh and it would eat either half of the newly opened flower or the top half of a bud that was about to open.

Thanks! We do have rabbits and these are newly planted SD o they are at a height that is reachable to the little pests. I will check for cut worms as well.

Forgot to say that yes bunnies will eat roses.

I have some that look like this. Rotten pests.

I do the same thing Jim does when they're little to protect them from rabbits, chippys and pack rats (lovely, huh?) until they get their growth goin' on.

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But actually that bud looks eaten by a worm, grasshopper, caterpillar or the like. I try to catch them before they do too much damage. In my experience, rabbits and chippys chew the whole bud off by the stem and munch.

Or Katydids.

Hoovb jogged my memory...

I was thinking I had a couple buds look like that last year and found grasshoppers on the roses... (I was never sure they caused the damage or not though)

Could also be cold. I have some buds that were ruined by a recent cold snap.

Well I'm starting to wonder if it is grasshoppers. It's hard to tell because I never see any hoppers in my area but now that it was mentioned I took a closer look at the leaves and some are being eaten from the edge.

I've seen the same damage to my citrus tree and it was pretty heavy. I finally think I got that under control by using some DE . I tried some organic vegetable spray as well .

Here are some pics. Sorry that a few are fuzzy it is pretty windy today.

Something is awful hungry Lisa! I wish I could pinpoint exactly what! You can see where something has been on those leaves from the little white marks...

Have you inspected underneath the leaves for any worm-like critters?

We had tent catarpillars here eating rose leaves last year luckily not that many... But they are easy to see...

Rose slugs-- the larvae of a sawfly that are green in color nibble at the tops of the rose leaves leaving them intact but with whitish destruction markings on them. One of your photos looks like leaf cutting bees -- nice little semi circles cut out that they use for their nests. But another looks like some sort of caterpillar damage. As jim1961 mentioned, look underneath the leaves for caterpillars or rose slugs.

Buford, I've had exactly the same type damage on mostly Evelyn buds, and I'm sure it's the work of insect larva. I've seen tiny worm like larva on occasion deep into these buds, and other times I don't find them. But it's always the same roses that suffer this, and some buds are eaten out way worse than others. In fact, some buds have been eaten so far down, there is hardly any bud left, but it has the same basic look. This has been going on for years and always in spring. I'm sure the cold has nothing do with it here. Lisa's rose damage looks more rounded off and less "excavated" than our rose bud damage. Diane