I purchased 3 roses there on 15-May-2017: 1 Veteran’s Honor #3, 1 D.A. Rose Windemere #3, 1 Summer Love #3 and a bag of Rose Tone. These were purchased for a new Rose Garden I had prepared. The shrubs were blooming on the day planted and were good for 1 week but then leaves got white spots and some yellowing. The stems are weak and limp. I kept them watered and they have good drainage. The Veteran’s Honor only had one bloom when purchased and no other buds have even begun to form. The roses are on East side of house with at least 6 hours of sun. My $100 rose garden is very sad looking. Any suggestions? Thank you.
6 hours of sun is barely enough for roses. In addition, it has been very cool and wet and roses love warm sun and heat…everyone’s roses are struggling this year so far. Trim off any spent flowers to prevent the rose from wasting energy producing seeds.. This will stimulate the rose to try and grow new buds and flowers. Make sure you’re not watering too much…the soil just needs to be moist and they can get fairly dry between waterings. With all the rain we’ve been having, they shouldn’t be needing much additional watering. Never spray the plants when you do find the need to water. Direct the water to the soil below…wetting the leaves promotes fungal diseases which roses are prone to. I’d cut off any of the leaves that have the white spots which is probably powdery mildew…one of the fungal diseases you can expect to see on roses during a wet year or if they are regularly sprayed with water from a hose. Neem oil organic spray is great at controlling fungal diseases and insects so you might look into that. Remember “dry leaves are happy leaves” which is true for all plants but especially roses.