Thank you to Paul Zimmerman for his contributions to this article.
If you’ve been on some of the rose forums, attended rose talks or even just talked roses on Facebook, you’ve likely heard the term Rose Rosette Disease or RRD. While it’s been around a while, it’s starting to show up on the radar screen of more and more general gardeners. So we’ve decided that it’s time to talk about it.
It is a disease that is carried by a specific spider mite, ‘Phyllocoptes fructiphilus’. An infected mite drifts on the wind, comes into your garden, lands on your roses and then injects the disease into the rose when it starts to feed. Or a non-infected mite can land on a rose that already has it, pick up and then when the wind blows it to another rose, it infects that one.
How do I know if my roses have RRD?
You know you’ve got it when your roses start to throw off strange growth that is purplish in color and most noticeably has “foliage” in the shape of what is called “witches broom”. It actually looks a lot like damage from a weed killer.
New red or yellow growth that never turns woody.
Thick canes with excessive thorns.
Blooms that open and seem deformed and/or stunted.
It is particularly lethal to the species rose R. multiflora and in fact has been mentioned as a potential biological control method for it. R. multiflora spreads like crazy, and in much of the eastern United States it’s classified as a noxious weed. Some government officials in their attempt to control it actually facilitated the spread of RRD by purposely infecting stands of multiflora.
They claim there was no specific proof RRD infected ornamental roses – the kind you grow in your garden.
Well guess what – they were flat out wrong! It does affect ornamental roses, some more than others. Now that we know what RRD is and how it got here, we can talk about what to do about it.
Since it hits R. multiflora quickly, check in your area for strands of it. R. multiflora only blooms in spring with smaller white flowers that have about 5 petals each. That’s the easiest time to spot it. When it’s not in bloom the foliage helps. It’s a shiny green and the leaves are elongated and usually thorn-less. It’s a rambler so it throws off long canes. The first step is to dig it up and get rid of it.
If rose rosette does happen to infect a rose in your garden there is no known “cure”. However, we’ve noticed in dealing with it that there are steps you can take. The first is to understand how it spreads in your rose. The mites land on the top of a rose cane where the new tender foliage is. They inject RRD into that part of the rose and from there it slowly travels down through the cane to the base and then up the other canes. The important word here is slowly.
The symptoms on the infected cane (the witches broom) very often show up before the rest of the plant is infected.
Remove the infected rose as soon as possible, including at least 4-inches of the roots./
Place it in a plastic bag and seal it.
Dispose of the bag in the trash. Do not place the infected rose in a compost.
So does this mean you should stop growing roses? Of course not! Rose rosette disease is a bummer when and if you get it, but by knowing how to deal with it you can reduce it to another part of your normal garden maintenance.
Jackson and Perkins is proud to be a part of the National Clean Plant Network. To learn more about this organization, visit here.
