Buying a new rose bush requires careful inspection to avoid potentially disastrous disease problems. Do you know the signs of black spot, rust and rose mosaic?
Just as bad as a rose that carries insects, is a rose that is diseased. Roses are potentially subject to some serious diseases that can disfigure and kill your rose bushes, or will require routine spraying to achieve "control" status. Since there are roses available with improved disease resistance, I do not think anyone should have to grow a problematic rose.
Insist on buying only "clean" plants. Inspect the rose bushes on display carefully before you bring one home. For example, if there is black spot on that rose variety at the store, your rose will definitely have black spot once you get it home - and will probably look a lot worse in a few weeks. This is a progressive and difficult to control fungal infection.
Check for Signs and Symptoms
A healthy rose bush has no visible signs of disease. Foliage is uniformly colored without spots or discolorations, yellow, brown or black marks or streaks. Leaves are not wilting, drooping or falling off the plant.
causes a mottling or streaking of the foliage in a tell-tale mosaic-like pattern, with golden yellow lines or markings running through it in a random pattern. This is an incurable virus that can be easily spread from plant to plant -- especially by your tools. Do not purchase a rose infected with mosaic unless you want all of your roses to look like that.
If you see any other unusual signs or symptoms, check it out and identify the cause before you buy the rose. Do not risk endangering your other plants by bringing home a potentially diseased rose and planting it in your garden.
MORE ON BUYING ROSES:
This article is part 4 of the How To Buy A Great Rose Series:
ENJOY!
All Flower Gardens Articles So Far
Copyright 2006 Barbara Martin
