Hello!

I live in South Florida where it's been extremely hot and very, very rainy for the past few weeks. I have a miniature rose bush that I've had for three years, and it's been fine until just recently...I took a trip to London and while I was gone, my husband said the bush was doing very well...but, when I got home, it started having problems...there was a large section of brown leaves that were on a brown stem/cane...there's another stem that is completely brownish/purpleish (with some white) on the bottom, with some green growth above it that is wilting...there is another stem that is half brownish-purple - vertically - and on the green side, there is good growth, but not on the brown side. There are other stems that are green. On all parts of the rose there are occasionally small, oval growths that look like bumps, but they scrape off when touched and are fairly fragile and hollow...I thought at first it was just really water-logged due to the rain...but then as I got to looking around online, it seemed to be more of a disease...

I have read about canker tonight, but I don't know if that's what's wrong with my rose or not...(most sites said that canker grows in cool weather, and it's not been cool since December! Plus I've read that canker goes from the top of the rose to the bottom and this seems to be going from the bottom to the top.)...I have uploaded a picture, and I would appreciate any help you can give - first to identify the disease...secondly to tell me if there's anything I can do or if my plant is doomed...if it's canker, I fear there's nothing I can do since the brown color on some of the stems goes all the way to the root of the plant...and there's no way to cut it out as recommended...and I figure it's only a matter of time until it spreads to the other parts of the plant...

I don't have a lot of experience with canker, but that doesn't look like canker to me. Those bumps on the green cane look like scale. I've used Volck oil to control scale. It literally drowns the insects. I've heard that Pam cooking spray works just as well and costs much less, but I've only used it a couple of times and couldn't tell whether it really worked as well or had been sprayed on plants that may have still displayed residual damage but no longer had living scale insects.

There's something else that could be killing the canes. You're growing the rose in a container. Is it possible that your potting medium is too wet?

Yes, that's a possibility as it was outside in all this rain...and I thought at first that was the problem...could too much water make it look like that?

Yes, it could. If it were mine, I would cut away the dead canes and replant it in a drier medium, or keep it under a roof overhang or something like that for a while. Let it dry out nicely.