Rose Bush Disease

“Do not watch the petals fall from the rose with sadness, know that, like life, things sometimes must fade, before they can bloom again.” - Author Unknown

Isn’t this quote just beautiful? I think personally this is why I love roses so much; they are really a labour of love in my opinion. Even though you give them all your time sometimes, there is a possibility they can get ill.

I’ve lived in my rented accommodation for almost 3 years now. The first summer I was not able to do much to the garden (even though it was concrete). Last summer I bought some plants to liven up the back because it was starting to look quite bland. In this group of flowers I bought the most beautiful Golden Shower Rose climber. This rose climber is just gorgeous. That summer it shot up. By the end of the summer it was almost 7 foot high and had the most beautiful rose blossoms ranging from a golden yellow to a light yellow. I  loved it! 

After the horrible winter that we had with all that rain and snow, my poor rose bush is really struggling this summer. It has terrible black spot on the leaves. The flowers are struggling because of Aphids on it as well. So I thought in my process of restoring my Golden Shower rose bush back to full health, I will go over some of the techniques I am using. First of all, lets discuss black spot. Black spot is a fungal infections that initially starts to grow on the leaves and can spread throughout your whole rose bush and also weaken your roses and cause them to die. What I didn’t know previously is that if you leave the leaves that have fallen on the soil below the rose bush, it causes the fungus to spread yet again. So clear all the infected leaves and flowers. This is quite sad though (in my case) as it has spread throughout the whole bush so I have had to prune it right back. But, hopefully with some tender love and care, it will grow back bigger and better than before!

Curing black spot usually involves having to buy a fungicide but I am quite reluctant to buy this as I have two dogs that walk around in the garden and strangely love eating leaves. So I would hate for them to ingest something harmful like this. So instead I have searched and apparently using Baking Soda mixed with water can be a remedy for powdery mildew as well as black spot. So once the rain has passed today, I will be spraying my rose bush with this mixture and I will keep you all updated.

As the weather has been quite hot so early, already at the end of April I started having trouble with my rose bush, and this includes those little rascals Aphids! These green little monsters just love eating my roses, I remember last summer I had some trouble with them as well. They will literally cover all over the flower and just eat away at it! So last summer I just used the hose pipe with a light spray to spray them off. But thinking back, I’m hoping that is not how I started the black spot on my roses. Anyway, I found two recipes that can be used to keep these buggers off. 

The first one is using the leaves of Rhubarb. I never knew but Rhubarb leaves are very poisonous so humans or animals should not ingest this. When making this wear gloves because Rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid, which is a skin irritant. Take 5 or 6 leaves and boil them down with two pints of water (about 1.2L) for about half an hour.  Add about a tablespoon of washing up liquid (or non detergent soap). Then strain the mixture through a sieve or a piece of cloth. Then you can put the mixture in a spray bottle and spray the rose bush from top to bottom (including the soil underneath it).  Be careful where you use this mixture. Don’t use it close to any edible plants or vegetables in your garden.

I decided to go the second mixture, which is a bit more pet friendly.

Firstly mix a cup of vegetable oil with a tablespoon of liquid dish detergent. When mixed well, this will be your primary solution to dilute with some water. Take one tablespoon of this primary solution and add it to two cups of water in a spray bottle. Mix this well in the bottle and spray the flower bush once a week.