What’s wrong with my rose?

dan16am · July 2019

Hi all, I have a David Austin Munstead Wood rose that has developed pale foliage and brown blotches after its first flush of blooms, any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help.

hogweed · July 2019

Rust perhaps? I would give it a good foliage feed.

dan16am · July 2019

Thanks for your reply hogweed, I thought it was perhaps black spot?

Joy* · July 2019

Don't think it's blackspot. That shows itself as black and in no time at all, seemingly, the spots are bigger than in your picture.

Valley Gardener · July 2019

As "rust" has been mentioned as a probable infection,can anyone tell me if roses can catch rust from Hollyhocks? My Hollyhocks are smothered in it and nothing works to get rid of it. I'm worried as I have a nice red rose close by.........Is it a case of getting rid of the Hollyhocks? This is the second year of this horrible desease.

dan16am · July 2019

I’m sorry I can’t help Valley, I’m not if the same species of rust attacks roses and hollyhocks

dan16am · July 2019

Here’s another photo not so close up, the leaves look pale and a little yellow with brown sploges and some have browned edges. It has been fertilized weekly since 1st week of April 🤷🏼‍♂️

Dovefromabove · July 2019

@Valley Gardener I’m pretty sure that ‘rust’ is a generic term used to describe many different fungal infections each with their own hosts ... your roses should be quite safe from hollyhock rust.

Ah yes! If you scroll down to the Biology section here https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=756
you’ll see that the RHS agrees with me 😆

Nollie · July 2019

Definitely not blackspot, I get a lot of that! Check the following RHS advice to see if the rust symptoms match https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=269 and what to do.

Your last sentence may be key - It may be fertiliser burn from fertilising too much. You should really only be doing this 2-3 times a year with slow-release rose food or similar. What have you been using? The recent hot weather won’t have helped, looks like a few leaf ends have been a bit fried...

I would stop fertilising altogether, not give it a foliage feed and... this is pretty drastic sounding... remove all the infected leaves and cut back any infected stems. It will recover all the better for that.
Roses like deep watering so give it a really good water at the base, never over the leaves. Give it a full 10L can/bucket, rainwater if you have it, feeding it slowly to avoid the water running off, twice a week. If you tapwater is hard, chuck a few teabags in the can to gently acidify it as your leaves look a bit pale for MW...
I would also scrape away the top inch or two of soil around the base in a wide circle to the outer edges of where the leaves were, then mulch the watered rose with fresh compost (nothing too rich) taking care to leave a little circle free around the actual rose stems. This is to help rid the surrounding soil from any fungal infection.

Then wait and see what the new shoots and foliage are like in a few weeks time. For Munstead Wood, the new shoots should be a dark red colour, gradually turning green. This worked for a poorly MW I had that is now looking much healthier.

Valley Gardener · July 2019

@Dovefromabove. Thank you very much for the info, such an ugly disease on the Hollyhock,at least I can breath easy now with the roses. Much appreciated advice.

What’s wrong with my rose?

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