Blackspot Susceptibility; Old Garden Roses

'Madame Hardy'

At last comes the third blog in my series reviews of roses for blackspot susceptibility.  Two Mondays ago I reported my Griffith Buck roses and last Monday it was the Canadians and Rugosas.   Since I also grow a fair group of Old Garden Roses (compared to some mythical average rosarian in my mind), I'll throw down on them in this third blog of the trio.  As before, the first number is the estimated percentage of leaves with blackspot and the second number the estimated percent defoliation.

Old Garden Roses:
Fantin Latour 60%-20%
Madame Hardy 0%-0%
Double Scotch White 0%-0%
Konigin Von Danemark 0%-0%
Comte de Chambord 0%-0%
La Reine Victoria 0%-0%
Zephirine Drouhin 5%-0%
Celsiana 0%-0%
Duchesse de Montebello 0%-0%
Charles de Mills 10%-15%
Louise Odier 5%-50%
Ballerina 30%-30%
Rose de Rescht 70%-5%
Variegata di Bologna 80%-10%
Red Moss (Henri Martin) 0%-20%
Salat 0%-5%
Duchesse de Rohan 0%-5%
Reine des Violettes 10%-10%
Madame Issac Pierre 10%-0%
Cardinal de Richelieu 0%-0%
Belle de Crecy <5%-5%
Blush Hip <5%-0%
Coquette de Blanches 5%-0%
Duchess of Portland 5%-0%
Frau Karl Druschki 10%-10%
Ferdinand Pichard <5%-0%
Shailor's Provence 0%-0%
Madame Plantier 0%-0%
Maiden's Blush 0%-0%
Seven Sisters 0%-0%
La France 20%-80% (not really an OGR, but the first Hybrid Tea).

This is normally a fairly blackspot-free group, but Fantin Latour got spotted up early and pretty badly, and Variegata di Bologna presently has a touch of the fungal flu.  As you would expect however, it is hard to go wrong with Old Garden Roses.  Most of our current disease troubles began after the breeding of 'La France'.  I grow 'La France' for conversations-sake only; if there was ever a balled-up, blackspot ridden rose, it is that first miserable offspring of crossing a Hybrid Perpetual with a Tea rose.  Why, oh why, did society ever decide that 'La France' was the future of roses?  For sheer gloriousness, I think the world went wrong and should have stayed with 'Madame Hardy', 'Duchesse de Montebello', and 'Madame Plantier'. Those are three classy old dames who can still show a gardener a good time.

Canadian and Rugosa Blackspot Review

'Hunter'....of course

This post is the second in a series of three Mondays on which I review a major group of my roses for blackspot susceptibility.  Last week, of course, I reported my Griffith Buck roses.  Today, I'll note the damage on my AgCanada-bred roses and selected Hybrid Rugosas.  Of course, many Rugosa Hybrids who have very thick and rugose leaves are not susceptible at all, and I can vouch for Blanc Double De Coubert, Souvenir de Philemon Cochet, Scabrosa, Purple Pavement, Pink Grootendorst, and F. J. Grootendorst as blackspot free.

As before, the first number is the estimated percentage of leaves with blackspot and the second number the estimated percent defoliation. And now, without further ado, the Canadians and Hybrid Rugosas: (with a few odd roses thrown in that were bred in Canada but not released by AgCanada).

Canadians:
Prairie Joy 0%-0%
Morden Blush 10%-5%  (this rose is my blackspot "indicator")
Marie Bugnet 0%-0%
Therese Bugnet 0%-0%
Cuthbert Grant 0%-5%
Morden Sunrise 10%-20%
Morden Centennial 5%-10%
J.P. Connell 60%-80%
David Thompson 0%-0%
Hope for Humanity 0%-0%
Adelaide Hoodless 5%-5%
Champlain 0%-0%
Henry Hudson 0%-0%
Alexander MacKenzie 10%-70%
Morden Ruby 0%-0%
John Franklin 30%-20%
Morden Fireglow 20%-10%
Winnepeg Parks 10%-50%
William Baffin 0%-80%  (leaf loss may be due to drought)
Survivor 5%-5%
John Davis 5%-5%
Martin Frobisher 0%-0%
Prairie Dawn 10%-60%

Hybrid Rugosas:
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer 5%-0%
Sir Thomas Lipton 0%-5%
Moore's Striped Rugosa 0%-0%
Robusta 10%-20%
Linda Campbell 20%-10%
Hunter <5%-0%
Rugelda <5%-0%
Topaz Jewel 0%-0%

As you can see above, the Canadian roses are hit and miss on blackspot susceptibility with John Franklin, Alexander MacKenzie, Winnipeg Parks, Morden Sunrise, and J.P Connell almost sure to have a little blackspot.  In fact, J.P. Connell always lies somewhere between struggling for life and trying to die for me and I would grub it out if I only had the courage of the Cowardly Lion (a little Kansas-Wizard of Oz reference there).  Morden Blush, interestingly, is usually one of my earliest roses to show blackspot, but this year it isn't as affected.

Rugosa blood, as you can see, does not necessarily mean that blackspot can be forgotten.  Robusta and Linda Campbell have both been a bit disappointing to me in that regard, but I keep them around for their cardinal red color and dependable repeat. Certainly, it seems the more rugose the foliage, the more blackspot resistant in this group.

Next Monday I'll spill beans on the Old Garden Roses that I grow.

Buck Rose Blackspot Review

Now that I've seen others state on the Web that it has been a bad blackspot year for their roses, I feel confident enough to come out of the fungal-shame closet and agree that I've been entertaining the same thought.  I don't know if it was the early March warmth or the cool nights of recent weeks, but blackspot has been a struggle at the K-State rose garden at this early date. In my own non-spray garden, I also believed that the roses were a little "fungus-ier" than normal.

So I resolved to note down the degree of blackspot damage on all my roses and did exactly that this morning.  And, you know what?  I think that maybe it is not quite as bad as I thought.  I seem to have been misled by an early defoliation of one of my 'Prairie Harvest' (normally quite resistant), and the damage on my 2-year old Paul Barden rose, 'Jeri Jennings'.  'Jeri Jennings' definitely got  the black spots aplenty, but 'Prairie Harvest' just seemed to turn yellow and defoliate all but the top leaves. I'm still not sure if that was blackspot-induced or drought-induced.  She seems to be coming back.   The rest of my roses are mostly doing quite well, in contrast to my undocumented impression, with exceptionally bad disease only on floribunda 'Rhapsody in Blue', English Rose 'Golden Celebration', and pink floribunda 'Gene Boerner'. 

For reference's sake in this modern era of gigabyte data and online searchs, I will report the blackspot tendencies of three of my rose groups, the Griffith Buck roses, the Canadians, and the Old Garden roses, today and over the next two Mondays.  Today, we'll tackle the Buck roses, at least those roses who are at or beyond their second season with me.   The first number is the estimated percentage of leaves with blackspot and the second number the estimated percent defoliation.  The list, of course, begins with Carefree Beauty, an Earth-Kind® decorated rose and often a resistant control rose in disease plot-tests.

Carefree Beauty 0%-0%
Country Dancer 0%-0%
Freckles 0%-0%
April Moon 0%-0%
Griff's Red 0%-0%
Wild Ginger 0%-5%
Hawkeye Belle 10%-20%
Prairie Harvest 0%-80%  or 0%-0%  (one defoliated, the other perfectly healthy)
Prairie Star 80%-20%
Winter Sunset <5%-0%
Earth Song <5%-0%
Quietness 20%-0%
Polonaise 0%-0%
Pearlie Mae 10%-0%
Golden Princess <5%-0%
Queen Bee 10%-10%
Honey Sweet 0%-0%
Folk Singer 0%-0%
Bright Melody 0%-0%
Iobelle 0%-0%
Golden Unicorn 0%-0%
El Catala <5%-0%

I noted roses with "<5%" above when I found a leaf or two with some blackspot, but generally the rest of the rose was unaffected.  The health of most of these roses are not surprising, or should not be surprising for the Buck-bred roses, since Dr. Buck bred and raised his roses under a no-spray policy in a similar climate to mine.  'Prairie Star', 'Quietness', 'Pearlie Mae' and 'Queen Bee' seem to be the only ones that I grow currently with some degree of blackspot present.  Other, that is, than the quandary that 'Prairie Harvest' is presenting me with.  I have one bush almost defoliated and the other unaffected.  I don't know if this year is a quirk from a rose that I've grown for at least 10 years and whose foliage is normally very blackspot-resistant, or whether the rose got damaged from something else like our current drought.  Time alone will tell the me truth.

Early Roses for the Prairie

I always treasure those first blooms of each season in the garden, as I'm sure most gardeners do. There are three shrub roses in my garden that trumpet the oncoming arrival of the main rose season that I would recommend to all my readers for their very early bloom and their other unique properties.  

'Marie Bugnet'

The earliest rose to bloom in my garden is a somewhat rare Rugosa rose named 'Marie Bugnet'.  Bred by Canadian George Bugnet in 1973, 'Marie Bugnet' is a bone-hardy cross of the Canadian roses 'Therese Bugnet' and 'F. J. Grootendorst'.  The child of these respectively pink and red parents, 'Marie Bugnet' is a very well-behaved pure white rose that blooms consistently before any other rose in my garden.  Continuous-flowering, double, and very fragrant, she stays about four foot tall and three feet wide and like a proper lady, she stays home and never suckers herself around the garden like other Rugosas.  As an added bonus, the crinkled foliage is completely resistent to blackspot and mildew.  

Two other quite different roses are not nearly as well-behaved since they tend to run around the garden throwing up clumps here or there, but they have, along with their early bloom, enough positive attributes to offset that wanton proliferation.  'Harison's Yellow' is a bright yellow cross of  R. spinosissima (from which  it gets the unique small leaves), and R. foetida (from which the yellow and the slightly pungent odor were inherited).  An exceedingly thorny shrub, it can double as a protective security barrier beneath a window or exist simply as a bright spot in the early spring garden, but you need to enjoy its bloom when you can, for it does not repeat during the season.  'Therese Bugnet', a parent of the aforementioned Marie Bugnet, is a bright fuchsia-pink, continuous blooming Rugosa cross which blooms alongside 'Harison's Yellow' for a seasonal display and then keeps on blooming sporadically throughout the summer.  I once saw an article which included the tall (six foot) 'Therese Bugnet' in a group of roses whose long canes provide extra interest by dancing in the wind, but the canes of  'Therese Bugnet' also turn a dusky red in the winter, giving some late winter color to the garden similar to that of a red-twig dogwood. 

'Therese Bugnet' (left) and 'Harison's Yellow' (right)