Rose Care – Black Spot on the Roses
This week in the rose garden I discovered some black spot on the leaves of a couple of the rose plants. Part of rose care is managing rose diseases as soon as they appear on the plant. We’ve just had 3 days of rain here so there’s a lot of humidity in the air. The perfect condition for black spot to make its appearance. Black spot is the scourge of rose gardeners who grow roses in humid coastal climates like Sydney. So I sprayed all the roses in the garden with a fungicide that controls this rose disease.
This is a treatment that I’ll have to continue doing once a fortnight now, right through Spring, Summer and Autumn if I don’t want the roses to lose half their leaves due to black spot.
I also pulled the affected leaves off the rose plants. Good garden hygiene is an important part of rose care especially once the conditions for black spot occur, so I picked up any leaves that had fallen on the ground, so that black spot spores won’t get splashed up on the plant next time it rains.
There’s been a bounty of roses on the plants this last week so there was plenty of deadheading to do. I usually make the cut about 4 – 5 leaves down from the spent rose flower. You don’t want to just snip the flower and the first couple of leaves off as the remaining shoot won’t be thick enough to support the new growth. About 4 – 5 leaflets down the stem seems to be the best place to make the cut – about as long as you’d cut when picking roses for a vase. Always make the cut at an angle just above a bud so water can run off the cut.
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nice article, thanks
I would like to know how I can treat and get rid of black spot on my roses.
Thank you
Hi Diana
you can never get rid of black spot entirely, you can only manage it by practicing good garden hygiene ie picking up any diseased fallen leaves from the ground around the base of the rose plant, and spraying once a fortnight with a fungicide made to control black spot on roses – just ask at your local plant nursery or hardware store for a suitable fungicide to use on them.
have found black spot on my roses and have cut all the bad leaves off, now some one told me that soapy water will help this and affes can you please tell me pretty new at the game but love my roses.
dot
Hi Dot
I have replied to your question here:black spot on roses
I have a problem with my rose flowers they turn brown on the edges as the bloom opens whats wrong Larry
Hi Larry
I’d say your roses have the insect pest “thrips” which are tiny sap sucking insects that attack rose petals, esp light colored blooms and can cause browning on the edges of the leaf petals. You’ll need to use a systemic insecticide to control them. Ask your garden center or plant nursery for one they recommend