Hi Boxerlover,

I can't comment on anthracnose specifically, never having noticed it on my roses. Are you sure that's what it was? If so it may have come in on the plants themselves or be living nearby in host plants. I've had a couple of roses die of fungal afflictions over the years. My response has been to tick them off the list of things I grow -- other varieties do quite well for me no-spray.

A few low-impact suggestions would be to discard and replace the mulch/soil surrounding the place where the diseased roses were growing, monitor your other roses and plants for symptoms, and be ruthless in pruning out and discarding infected canes and foliage. Ensuring that the roses have enough sun (the more the better in your zone) and good drainage (but sufficient summer water) will also help their immune systems to fight off fungal infections. If I were you I'd try to address those issues first, and once that is accomplished maybe try some neem this year. If the problem persists/gets worse despite those measures, you could take stock then.

Lots of folks on the east coast spray their roses as a matter of course, but I'd rather grow other things than spray. Personal preference. You can also try to plant roses that are more resistant to fungal diseases -- look for roses that are resistant to black spot as a guide. Kordes has bred some very disease resistant modern roses, and many old garden roses (though not all) show good resistance when compared to many modern roses.

Thank you K.S.! I don't know if that's what they actually had - I took pics and asked on here and that was suggested. The symptoms seemed to fit. I removed one rose (Drop Dead Red) but still have the other (Love at First Sight) - both planted last spring along with Julia Child as bare roots. Julia did great all year with minimal issues (from beetles ick). My backyard faces South/Southeast so they pretty much get sun all day. If anything I worried that when the temps were in the high 90s they were getting too much sun. The humidity here is awful so that definitely didn't help. Thank you for the suggestions, I will definitely get rid of the mulch and soil and see if that helps. I followed the great info I got from this forum on watering and feeding so I think I did okay there..... I do have a few Kordes after reading about disease resistance - Soul Sister (which was a baby when I planted it last spring) and in the fall I planted Plum Perfect and Pink Enchantment.