How To Treat Rose Blackspot & Rust
There are a number of reasons why your roses may be suffering from rust or blackspot issues. They could continually be re-infected from neighbouring gardens with diseased roses, or maybe poor hygiene in your own garden has led to the soil underneath the rose to become infected with diseased spores. These spores will re-infect your roses each time you have heavy rains or marks and lesions on the stems can also help harbour diseases.
Remove Diseased Leaves
Remove diseased leaves as soon as you notice them, simply pick them off and dispose of them in a bin or bonfire, never let them fall to the ground.
Feed & Spraying Your Roses is Essential
Make sure to feed your roses at least twice a year to ensure they are kept healthy and with good resistance to disease, we recommend Empathy After Plant Rose Food.
Spray your roses before you see problems occur, this should be every 2 weeks from April. Alternate the products each time you spray, we recommend using Sulphur Rose, Uncle Tom’s Tonic and SB Plant Invigorator, they are all safe, natural and bee friendly products.
During the winter while roses are pruned and dormant, fill a watering can with a diluted mix of Sulphur rose and water or Jeyes Fluid and attach a shower head rose to the can. Give each rose 5 litres of the mix, this should kill off any overwintering disease spores and give your roses a clean start for the following season. Try to avoid catching the foliage with the mixture as it may scorch.
Still No Joy?
If you are still having no luck despite following the above tips and guidance for a number of years, it may be the variety of rose itself that is the issue. Some older rose varieties are simply more prone to disease. If this is the case with your problem rose, we recommend you dig the rose up and dispose of it away from your garden and replace it with a much healthier variety using Rootgrow in the planting hole to avoid repeating the same problem. Gold Standard Award or Rose of the Year roses are excellent plants that perform well and have great health, these award-winning varieties would make a perfect substitution for your diseased rose, as are the roses we grow on our own nursery.
