Last year I discovered 10 roses with Rose Rosette disease on my property. This year so far, two more have it. There are wild multiflora growing in the fields near me, and I suspect the mite that carries the disease blew from those plants to mine. Wichita has many many commericial plantings that are totally infested with RRD, and business owners have been reluctant to totally redo their landscape, so the disease continues to spread. Our botanical gardens and the county extension display gardens both have found it in their plantings. We first tried just removing the infected canes, but now the recommendation is to remove the entire plant from the ground, bag up the entire thing, send it to the landfill and never plant a rose in that space again.
I have only had to totally remove 2 plants so far. One was an Austin, the other was an old favorite, Auguste Renoir. I have knockouts with the disease, Souvenir de la mal maison has it, Austins, scarlet meidiland, and Jacob's Robe. Maybe the minis won't get it?
Two people in our rose society have lost their entire collections of roses to RRD. At our sale today, customers were asking for roses that are resistant to it.....sadly, we know of none.
And no cure, so far.
On all but the two plants, I seem to have stopped the progression of the disease by removing the infected canes. Time will tell if it returns to those plants. It is possible, I admit, that if I had totally removed the first plant that first showed the disease, that no other plant would have been afflicted.
Mary, I would cut out those canes that show the red fast growth. Cut them way back the the base of the plant, and then clean your pruners with alcohol. See if new growth is reddish and thick, or if it is green like the rest of the plant. I hate to disagree with an expert....but that sure looks like the RRD when it first showed up on my plants.
If I see more here, I'll post close up photos.
