I was aware of most of those techniques when I gardened in NJ. For a while I sprayed, but I found that most of my favorite roses didn't require attention most of the time. Many did well without any spraying, ever. So it seemed like a monumental waste of time to spray every week... until BS hit most of the HTs second week of June or so. Then, as the article points out, it was too late. The roses dropped their leaves until late August. Then they would green up again, but would only get six weeks of good weather on the new leaves. So the roses would look good for six weeks in May and the first two weeks in June. And they'd look good for four weeks in September. The rest of the year they would be barren of leaves for one reason or another. And barren roses just don't look that good in the garden.
All shrub roses thrived and most floribundas and minis did well without spraying. Most old roses were fine. The DA roses that weren't yellow did well, too. The occasional HT did well. So going without spraying only seemed like a silly thing to do in the years I planted a lot of HTs. And that happened once or twice.
While it's true that I didn't mulch very aggressively, it was also true that there was an almost perfect correlation between roses that got black spot and roses that perished in the garden. There are two exceptions that come to mind where Roundup overspray was responsible for the loss of a good rose: Sombreuil and Mme Plantier. Oh, yes, I do remember losing Memorial Day over the winter. It was the best-branched and among the most vigorous of the HTs I planted and it was immune to BS. So I was surprised when it failed. It failed for me here, too - again, not from BS but from freezing. Here in AZ where it's one full USDA zone warmer, ironically, I lose a lot more roses to freeze-thaw cycling than I did in NJ. None to BS, gratefully. Anyway, I consider Memorial Day to be the only rose I lost to winter freezing of all the roses I planted in NJ Z6b.
I got a real chuckle out of your comment, Toni, about Cheerios and donut trees; because that's the way CA rose gardening has always appeared to me, too.
---
I'm pleased that this year: it seems that with the right amount of water and fertilizer nearly all of my roses appear to be growing happily. (Don Juan excepted). There are even some blooms going into summer. Rainbow Sorbet and Cherry Parfait - roses that have been in the garden for three years - have been pretty much in constant bloom since early June. So too, Ascot, Paradise, and Shocking Blue all in their first year from Palatine. Moonstone is developing into a stout and productive plant that bears flowers almost continuously. So, too Waterlily and Toscana Vigorosa. I've been pleasantly surprised by the Marchioness of Londonderry whose pale pink flowers have a delicious, soft lemon merengue scent. Parade and Grande Dame are preparing for a second flush of bloom. Paradise Found, Leann Rimes, and Firefighter - since the six inches of rain from summer monsoons - have started building up nicely. Even Falstaff which I had threatened verbally with removal this spring has perked up and is cranking out lovely blossoms. And, of course, South Africa glows in the garden. The big surprise this year has been the floribundas and old roses from VG that hit the ground running in mid May and are growing like topsy.
In the interest of staying on topic, I don't think there is a rose in the garden right now that has J&P in its provenance. Who could have said that two decades ago?
