Sad Roses

I believe Rosa Chinatown came onto the market around 1963. It instantly became very popular due in part to it attractive colour and scent. I don't recall it ever being classed as disease resitant. Multiple plantings were made in public parks and gardens, and having always shared a great love for roses and the Queen Mary rose garden in Regents Park. London. It soon became noticeable that this delightful rose sadly attracted black spot.

During my lifelong love and botanical study of roses, plus my friendship with the late. S M Gault MBE and several rose nurserymen. We all had this idea of planting our roses in beds. To me this was the ideal. A bed of say 60 plus roses all of the same. No underplanting. Sad to say this has proved to have it's problems. Although it all looked good. In cases where roses, suseptible to black spot were planted. We in fact had introduced an on-site factory, breeding ground for the disease. This was identified at the Garden of the Rose. The National Rose Society's garden at St. Albans. Suddenly rose beds were now to be found, having non rose plant added.

So to plant and cultivate a rose hedge. I would plump for say Rosa Rugosa or Rosa Canina. These are two of the natural roses. Sorry to go on, but to me. Roses like a beautiful woman. You can't get enough.

 

@ARMANDII, @Mike Allen I feel completely duped!

Going forward, do you think this is worth fighting or should I dig these up and start again?! Although, even if I remove these I can’t replant roses due to the soil - right? There are about 20 roses....I feel completely defeated.

 

IMO. Make do with what you have. Think, prevention rather than cure. Best wishes.

 

Just thought I’d update on the war with the black spot! So I cut the roses back hard and sprayed the hydrogen peroxide mix (I think about 4 sprays in total) to kill any lurking spores. I’m now spraying weekly with a milk/bacarb soda/garlic water mix to hopefully try to prevent an outbreak. The Chinatown and the magic moment roses are holding up well but the Sheila’s Perfume does not seem to like anything on her leaves and they’ve went a bit shrivelled looking. I think I’ll back off with the spraying and let her recover a bit, she never suffered too badly anyway!