This is Beverly this morning. I bashed her last year (her first) as she was small, blackspotting, very few blooms, beautiful and amazingly fragrant even to my deficient sense of smell - but I thought they aged too fast and not so well.

This year she seems determined to prove me wrong.

She looks amazing right now (close to 30 big, strong buds) but I need whoever has done the above to quit doing it. The chomped bud was closest to the rail.

Cutworm could do this. I deal with them in my garden each spring. The only way I manage them is to go out when it gets dark and pluck them off my shrubs and plants. Some nights I will get dozens at a time. They girdle stems and buds and eat right through them.

Urrrgh! Nothing I can spray with? Maybe that garlicky solution used for deer, like Bobbex?

The bud was no eaten through, just the stem chopped off and it was a pretty sturdy stem too. Can worms do that?...

As far as I know, cutworm control is picking them off. Diatomaceous earth can possibly help too.

Yes, they do exactly that--eat through the stem. I'm not sure that cutworm is the culprit for your issue here, but yes, they can do this, and they do do this.

Read more here.

They are not deterred by thorns. I pulled three of them my Gertrude Jekyll rose two nights ago. They were happily crawling over the thorns several feet above the ground!

Looks like deer chomping to me. I have deer go right up to my front door for food. My deer would have no problem getting to it.

Deer will definitely come up onto the deck if they decide it's worth their time.

Squirrels and roof rats (any kind of rat, really) will bite off buds. I saw a squirrel one day hopping from pot to pot biting off buds and hips and burying them in the next pot. Then start over again etc.

First guess, squirrel...especially if you found the bud lying about somewhere close by.

Second guess, deer...rose buds are top on their list. They will leave the bushes' leaves alone and eat all the buds. Your deck is no obstacle to a deer.

Sorry for the disappointment. I hope it's a one time event.

Moses

Thank you all. May have been a squirrel, as they can get on the rails.

Deer would not come up here, there are stairs - I never ever saw one even remotely approaching the deck; and if one had actually done it, it would have chomped more than just one bud, like they do with the ones in the front yard, growing in the ground.

I pushed the pot away from the rail so hopefully that will take care of it. am also thinking that of there were worms, I would have seen more damage.

Only one bud was cut, as if one person had done it.

Squirrels ate a lot of my rose buds and blooms last year. That would be my first guess.