RE: Hard-pruning the roses again
I know this sounds bad, I tried to kill my roses. I have 2 that are pretty severely diseased and I haven't found anything to cure it. A friend suggested I trim them all the way back to just the base 'that will get rid of the disease' I didn't follow the thinking, but ok. I trimmed the 4 bushes all the way down and thought it would be better to have them die off at that point. I have milkweed and pokeweed vine growing profusely with them so I treated the area with vinegar. I hoped what was there would die off allow me the opportunity to clean up the bed. I had even taking trimings off of the health bushes to return them once things were cleaned up. Turns out when you add something acidic to alkaline soil, it doesn't kill it. I still have 2 diseased bushes, 2 rapidly growing over producing bushes, milkweed, pokeweed vine and grape hyacinth
Hmm, roses love acidic soil and that may be part of the problem. I'd remove the weeds by hand and look at improving the soil and general growing conditions to see if they cure themselves. What does the disease look like?
The leaves are half yellowed and curled. The buds look like their rotten until it blooms.
I had looked it up, but don't remember right now what it was called.
I figured that part out when they did better overall. I keep weeding, I can't seem to get the milkweed to stop. It is a freaking hydra. If you pull one part 3 or 4 more sprouts pop up. Then I read if you just break the stock and let them die that way it should resolve the issue. That didn't work. Part of me doesn't want to get rid of them due to the butterflies, but I have yet seen bee nor butterfly attracted to these.
Often, it's not enough to just break the stock, dig around in the soil until you have found and removed it all.
I throw all my used tea leaves and coffee grinds at the base of the rose bushes but a rose fertiliser and epsom salts may help too. Do they have good drainage and are they getting enough sunlight?
Wonderful amount of sunlight, they are on the eastern side of the house and the sun doesn't go behind the house until about 2pm. I think that is part of the reason they are still doing as well as they are. I am unsure about drainage since they were here when we bought the house. I have not seen any sitting water even after a very heavy rain, so I am inclined to think there is. I will have to start saving my tea and coffee grounds.
Then I guess I'll have to go rooting. I will definitely wait until it's not 100+ outside :( Thank you so much for the advice @nikv