Hi. This is my first visit to this forum. Three years ago, we built a home and had knockout roses planted. I'm new to gardening, but I have discovered that our roses have rose rosette disease.
I've followed the advice at
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Rose-Rosette-Newsletter_vq4743.htm, but I did have a few questions I was hoping someone more experienced than me (so, probably every other member of this board) could answer.
As I was pruning this weekend, I cut out all canes with the affected leaf pattern growing from them. I also cut out all canes that had dark spots, looked "dead," had discoloration inside, were touching other canes, or were growing so densely that no air and sun were able to get through, cleaning my trimmers several times with hydrogen peroxide during and after. What I didn't do, though, was cut back every single cane that had the proliferation of thorns he describes, because if I did that, I wouldn't have anything left, and the point is to try to rescue these bushes, although ... if I gotta pull them out, I gotta. I'm just trying to treat that as a last resort. Then this morning I sprayed them all (plus all my beds for good measure) with Garrett Juice Plus amended with peroxide and orange oil.
So, my question is this: is it possible, do you think, that my roses will come back? Or should I accept that I'll probably have to pull them out? Or ... lol, is it a tossup? Please note that not every cane with the "proliferation of thorns" seemed to have any diseased growth coming from it. But there's no mistaking that it was unusual thorn growth.
One final note: I have always been partial to the idea of organic plant care, but really we've left most of our lawn/plant to the professionals, an approach I am beginning to question. Also, a few years ago we had a friend staying with us. In an attempt to be helpful, he doused our beds with Roundup. By the time I realized what he was doing, he was already done. I believe that contributed to the issues I'm seeing now, and may actually have caused some of the damage (meaning maybe it's not ALL the rose rosette, although I believe at least some of it is, because of the thorns).
Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.