Blind Roses

Hi all,

I bought a couple of roses back in March/April which I planted with some slow release fertiliser. Its now June and they are still quite small and are looking rather sorry for themselves. I've been told they've gone blind so therefore have not grown as expected or produced any nice flowers. :-(. I'm new to growing roses so had no idea what to look out for when they originally started to form shoots. Its now been pruned but am I too late for them to produce any nice flowers this year or can I still expect a later flower?

One rose has also suffered from some kind of bug as some of the leaves have holes in them. They started off as little brown marks which I originally thougth could have been rust or something similar but then spotted some kind of bug/mite under a few leaves. I've treated them now which hopefully has stopped whatever was attacking them, but they are looking rather sorry for themselves.

Will I have the same problem next year too. Hope not. :-(. Thanks for your help.

 

Hi, thanks for your reply. Yes that's all that was done really. However considering how small they are anyone would think it was cut right back especially as they're supposed to be around 3ft .

 

Hi, I bought David Austen English roses, named Heathcliff. I originally wanted patio roses but bought the wrong ones. Oops.

 

Hi, I bought David Austen English roses, named Heathcliff. I originally wanted patio roses but bought the wrong ones. Oops.

 

Can u post pictures please?

 

Ok. Hope this has worked as I'm trying to do this from my phone.

I've taken pictures of the rose that is blind. One pic shows the size of the plant and the other shows a closer view of the leaves with holes.

 

Some of my rose bushes did that too.. They grow a bit then new growth dry up . They sit there for weeks. What I did was mulch with a bit of compost and water every other day then eventually they start growing .
Spray your rose to control diease and pest .

 

That looks like rose sawfly damage or rather their larvae. They live on the underside of the leaves. You will need to spray the leaves with a good insecticide to get rid of them, so spray the undersides of new leaves forming.

Blind roses are sometimes a problem with new roses that are trying to establish themselves but are taking a long time to do so. Did you dig the soil over and add leaf mould/compost to the planting hole before planting? Very important to do this if you have clay soil. I'm assuming these were container-bought roses. Did you accidentally break the roots when you removed them from the pot (easily done)? Eg sometimes the soil falls away from the rose as you remove it from the pot taking most of the root system with it.

It's a good idea in the first year to have pruned all the stems hard in early spring to encourage new vigorous shoots. You also need to ensure that the plant gets plenty of water during the first year. I'd prune back 2 of the main shoots now (with the damaged leaves) by half and give the soil a bucket of water. Don't feed the plant any more until next spring.

 

Hi, no roots were broken when I removed from the pots as far as I was aware as they came out pretty easy. Plus when I bought them in March/April they were pruned back pretty hard already. The soil was pretty good to begin with too to be honest as it looked liked it was mixed with some sort of compost but I also mixed in some John Innes No.3 and slow release fertilizer. I'll definitely keep up with the watering tho. I'm quite new to roses so have no idea where to prune.

 

Roses are hungry and thirsty plants Sparkle and I suspect your slow release fertiliser is not providing enough nutrients quick enough. Mulching with horse manure if available is best. I have started using chicken manure pellets around mine which do just as well as I'm not strong enough now to lug horse manure around.

 

They may have come out the pot pretty easy, but I can tell you from experience that the roots of container-grown new roses are very fragile and are not sufficiently developed to hold the pot soil together properly. Hence when you knock them out the pot most of the time some of the soil falls away taking a chunk of root system with it. You need to be very careful when you remove that pot. Unless you are aware of this potential problem you may end up with a rose that just sits there and sulks for most of the season. From what you've described I suspect that's what may have happened. Some people place the pot in the planting hole then cut the side of the pot away which avoids the problem.

 

Maybe that's what has happend. . Will they be ok next year do you think?

 

They should survive ok but I'd forget about flowering for this year Just make sure the soil doesn't dry out in warm spells, or water weekly in dry periods. You can mulch the soil to conserve moisture.