It looks like something had chewed on it..... like maybe chilithrips and then they were killed....

Would they cause the plants to start growing like that?

Mulching your beds will improve growth habit by: retaining moisture and keeping soil temps cooler and even. The mulch depth I see in your photos is not deep enough. It should be 2-2.5" deep. Also, pine bark of any size is the ideal mulch...slow to decompose keeps it functioning as a mulch. The mulch needs to cover the entire bed, not just around individual bushes.

Heat stress may be a contributing factor to their odd growth. Excessive heat promotes spindly, weak growth with smaller, fewer petaled blooms. Make sure your roses are adequately watered.

Moses

That looks like temporary heat stress. It will go away by itself in the fall, but mulch and watering will help alleviate it sooner. From the looks of whole plant, you are taking great care of them in the Texas heat and humidity, so nothing serious to worry about.

BTW,

It is obvious, going by the healthy, nice, full size of the roses' leaves that they made during new spring growth, that they were well cared for, well fertilized and had good watering then. After your dead heading of the spring flush, the growing conditions got pretty hot and the resulting stress induced new growth made to be quite extended, thin, and small leaved, worthless growth that you have very little control over. This is typical, being due to heat stress.

Just keep up watering and lay down some good quality mulch like pine bark, and make it deep enough. Wait a few weeks before getting the pruners out, and in late August I suggest you make fresh prune cuts to the next leaf BELOW the dead head cuts you made earlier where the new distorted growth emerged, getting rid of it. From the fresh cuts, new, husky shoots should pop out and grow more in line with the kind of earliest growth made that led to the bushs' lush, large leaves of their first spring flush.

What varieties are you growing? Some varieties grow much better in high heat and high humidity locales, taking the extreme growing conditions and not wimping out so fast.

Moses

Thank you, Moses. I am encouraged by your words. I'm growing Olympiad, Mr. Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy hybrid teas that I got from Jackson & Perkins, and a Medallion hybrid tea that I got from a nursery in MS, but I forgot the name of it.

Thank you BenT

Thanks so much. If I'm dealing with heat I can wait it out. Fall will be here eventually. Hibiscus are beautiful, and I do have other flowers. My gardenia's are growing like weeds. They love it here. Alstroemeria, lavendar, peony, ranunculus, gladiolus are all doing well. Fuchsia are blooming, but I don't have them in an ideal place. But, I must have roses. I'm my mother's daughter. I grew up with amazing gardens at our home. My mom's rose bed had 36 roses. As a kid, we'd pull the thorns, stick them on our noses and pretend to be rino's! I think roses are in my DNA.

Check out this thread on heat-tolerant roses from Gardenweb

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1663236/heat-tolerant-roses-what-s-in-your-garden

And good luck!

The blackened buds and distorted foliage, especially in the first two pics, show classic chilli thrips damage. They thrive in the heat.

I agree with others who said chili thrip damage