There's also a kind of hallo( yellowish) around the dead blackened area that can be oval or round. The canker doesn't necessarily cover all the cane and can appear just on one side of it. I have a 'Blue Moon' cane with a quite lengthy canker ( about 8" long) symptom all on one side of a very thick main cane. Towards the upper end the cane is again healthy and it looks as if the plant were shedding off the diseased part while developing a more woody structure for the main cane. Not always does canker imply the doom of the plant or even the cane. It can heal by itself too! With my BM, what I'm considering is awaiting next season, provide extra protection this winter and extra manure dressing, so as to stimulate new healthy growth. If that happens, then I'll replace that thick cane. Why do I wait? Because that cane has in its healthy part all the needed energy stored in the form of starch precisely in its thickest cane ( it is 1.2 " thick). If I remove it now I'll be depriving it of that starch!
Most of our work with plant diseases is empirical. Very little hard science is available there. I don't have difficulty in adapting to that. However my caveat is that the empirical 'eye' is gradually developed. Regardless our backgrounds, most gardeners anywhere in the world are constantly faced with issues that can be solved only empirically. That is why sharing how each of us faces problems is so valuable, the RF a great place for that and the Internet an amazing tool.
Arturo

Scary Photos

@fisherwoman Does pic 1 belong to the same plant as pic 2, just from a different angle or closer?. It looks like a very young bush single caned.... Perhaps the plant could overcome it (pic2) if well fed all growing season and kept watered avoiding water stress. I would lift it , pot it, placed under my very close scrutiny in my porch and keep a watch. If new basal breaks show below then I would cut the blackened cane off... and the plant may survive...
Arturo

Arturo, I always like a 2nd opinion. Thank you for sharing your experience along with some hope! In the case of my BM, I don't think the canker was something the bush could overcome.

Fortunately, BM is not a difficult rose to replace. Replacing it ,is also an option that has to be weighed too. However discussing it allows us to choose better. Sometimes, misfortune surprises us on roses almost impossible to find again... That usually happens when one hasn't made extras from it...
Arturo

My scary photos were of Evelyn, and one cane of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. After I remove that, there will only be one Mackintosh cane left. Hope it survives long enough to see a bloom.
In a dozen years I have not experienced anything like this.

I get that all the time with my roses being outside in the spring with cool nights after I take them out from the garage. It's frustrating.

Carol you are an inspiration.
This morning the air is cool, birds are chirping, getting ready for a 90 degree day.
The rose situation looks much more hopeful; I'll get some fungicide, do what can be done , and leave the outcome in God's hands.
My son gently said it's just a plant, and compared it to my other son's attempt spending thousands on making a salt water tank safe harbor for some exotic corals that are dying in the wild due to oil spills and various pollutants. Either the tank apparatus fails, or by some catastrophic event he loses spectacular fish and extremely rare corals. He learned to take it bravely.
My intention at the beginning was to try to grow a few beautiful roses along life's journey. Guess I had became a control freak again.

Arturo, thanks for your experience and advice; I think potting the roses in a better new soil is a creative option I'll try with the worst cases. Now my mood has turned from distressed to energized.

@fisherwoman I'm very happy for you about your internal turn of events! It took me a lot of time to learn that loss is also a necessary companion in my life' path... and its the kind of learning that I would prefer not to go through though ( I'm not a masochist and that is why it took me so long to understand... )However what invigorated me through moments of loss is, that if I provided all my effort to avoid it, then I can let that loss happen without being or feeling guilty about it. Loss and on top being guilty ! ...a loose loose situation, wouldn't you think so? So, I try to do my possible very best erstwhile. Roses are wonderful teachers that in spite of horrible prospects, sometimes they make an unexpected comeback and give us a life lesson! So its always worth a try!
Arturo

Well said, Arturo!

Fisherwoman - sounds like your son is pretty amazing!

I cannot tell a lie, i axed more bad canes. Now i'm calling in the DR Earth Fungicide to see if it will stop the plague.

Fisherwoman - that's a beautiful drawing. Good luck with your roses!

Lost another rose today to canker--New Day. That makes four so far with a few others looking suspicious. The ones that have succumbed so far: Angel Face, Blue Moon, White Lightnin', and now New Day. All from Lowe's bareroot (Mea brand). I wonder if I had kept my receipts, I could get a refund? All of them had beautiful blooms, some even two flushes, so they probably wouldn't qualify for a refund anyway.

I believe Lowe's has a year return policy. I'd do it as it seems they may have come infected.

Both my bareroot MEA roses died. I was super bummed. I had white wedding and red masterpiece. Red masterpiece never even grew a single leaf. white wedding grew new growth. 3 new basal breaks out of the bud union Then just stopped. And died back.

reh0622 said:Lost another rose today to canker--New Day. That makes four so far with a few others looking suspicious. The ones that have succumbed so far: Angel Face, Blue Moon, White Lightnin', and now New Day. All from Lowe's bareroot (Mea brand). I wonder if I had kept my receipts, I could get a refund? All of them had beautiful blooms, some even two flushes, so they probably wouldn't qualify for a refund anyway.

Just remembered another that died on me from Lowe's this year--Cl. Orchid Masterpiece. That one died before it ever had a bloom.

I gave away half dozen new bareroot I had potted up and I saw some canker on a couple I tried to cut out but couldn't get it all.. Now it looks like one of those is failing--Sonia--which is too bad since it has such perfect blooms. I also lost Sonia years ago, so maybe it's not particularly robust having been originally a florist rose.

Rosemary ...

It is always easier to start out with a healthy plant. At least now you know what to look for when you are purchasing a rose from a big box store ... or any nursery. Mail order ?? You get what they send ...

I have had canker on roses that I have purchased from nurseries up here, but I didn't plant them out right away. I have lousy, lousy native soil in this garden, so I have learned to pot up my roses in good soil and grow out a large root mass before I put them in the ground.

None of the big box stores, or even the two good nurseries, sell bare rooted plants up in Redding. The roses are all potted up. I've been told that is because the mortality rate is too high to leave them as bare root plants.

I don't know if you are aware that roses are harvested by machines. They are yanked out the ground and thrown on a truck to be hauled to the processing area. The roses that go to the big box stores are the culls ... they have more machine damage ... damaged roots or very few roots ... than the roses that are sent to the better nurseries. So, they are starting off damaged.

You may already know what practices you should follow when you bring a new rose home, but others on the forum may not. I am only referring to roses budded to Dr. Huey, not multiflora, because I have only grown roses budded to the good doc.

There are a few things you can do when you first get your rose to make sure it has a better chance of succeeding.

When you bring your rose home, you should inspect the roots for any damaged or rotten roots and trim them off. Then you should soak the roots in a 10% bleach solution over night. This should kill any fungus growing in the root system. (Note: I would do this even if the rose came home potted up because I am certain this step is skipped at the big box stores.)

Then pot the rose up in a clean pot with good potting soil that drains well. Keep in mind that there is no way that you can do this without damaging the feeder roots of the rose. What that means to you is that the root system is inefficient and not working at 100%.

Good practice is to water the rose every day while it is growing new roots. Roses will not put any energy into the top growth until they have a good root system. Don't feed the rose until you see new top growth. That is the signal that the root system is now working and the rose is ready to grow. Then feed it lightly and often.

I don't even put any fertilizers in my pots, while others will put some organic fertilizers in the pot.

A few years ago, @Zuzu recommended that the soil in roses purchased from a nursery that have been potted up should be replaced because the nurseries use a potting medium that is more sawdust than soil. I think that's a good tip.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but I've never ended up with dead roses, so I think it is worth it.

Lyn - that's interesting. I, too, lost a few roses this spring from canker on new roses. I've never heard of the bleach solution idea. Lots of good information here!

Thank you for all the tips and background with cheap bareroots, Roseblush1. It had been a long time since buying bareroot, but I followed the directions on the pkg, One thing I was uncertain about, is that several had a lot of feeder roots, so I wasn't sure whether I should remove all the sawdust packing material or not, since I knew it would ruin the feeder roots. Some I left, some I didn't. I should have kept a record of which was which, so I could compare the outcome. Most of my bareroots went into clean pots with E.B. Stone RoseGrow soil. I added some homegrown compost which always seemed to have a good effect with roses I had planted inground. I kept them well-watered. Later I added a bit of organic fertilizer according to pkg. directions for new roses.

When I bought them, I was looking mostly for fragrance along with replacing a few I had had in the past that had died, and I decided to add some climbers. I think most were affected by canker by the time they went into the pots. I wish I had examined them better when I purchased them. Some I knew I was taking a chance on because they had already started to leaf out, so I knew it would be harder for them to succeed. I removed the leafy growth and shortened the canes, because that is what I had read somewhere to do. I could have unwittingly spread the canker because I didn't know it was "catchable" and I didn't disinfect my pruning shears.

This is the first I've read that potted roses should have the soil replaced that they come in. Two of the ones I bought are now in larger pots, but I've discovered a bit of canker on some of them (both from Home Depot) that I've tried to remove, but some is still there. Hope I'm not spreading it to otherwise healthy bushes. One from from Rogue Valley, another from Green Acres (Weeks), and one from Regan Nursery all appear to be free from canker. I think all of my inground, older roses are free from it, but I think the ones I planted this year from Lowe's, all have a touch of it with canes I tried to prune away, but couldn't get all of it.. A few climbers are down to to one cane. I will probably "wait and see" as the season wears on, as to whether they make it or not. Yes, at least I know what to look for, giving bareroots a serious inspection if I ever buy them again locally, and inexpensively.