Last summer my Olivia Rose Austin put up some strong new growth and then it got weird. The new canes were ‘bloated’, the leaves never matured, and developed a witches broom at the top. Before you think RRD, let me finish.
I’ve had this bush ~3 years, it’s not new. The one next to it, and all my others, did nothing like this.
The ONLY thing new was that in this area, behind where she was planted, we installed a mini-split HVAC system and the outdoor unit was placed there. All summer long whenever that a/c unit kicked on it would blow air. One would think that to not be a problem, right?
I can’t fathom what went wrong. I opted to dig the plant out yesterday when I was pruning. To the best of my knowledge we do not have RRD here (yet).
My question is… what went wrong?
Did you take any pictures of the distorted canes? We can’t offer any advice without seeing what was happening. How are your adjacent roses doing? Where do you live?
I did, I also sent the pics to a MR in my area. He didn’t think it was, but could not confirm.
I wanted to upload pics but I could not get my computer to cooperate. It gives me an error code…
Too bad you can’t load the pictures.
Witches broom sounds like RRD. I have had two 36" standards in large pots located on my deck - each 4 years old. They are both double budded Ebb Tide & Julia Child standards. Last year, in August, one of them developed RRD while the other did not. Their positioning was 2-3 feet apart. So I think when one rose acquires RRD it doesn’t necessarily spread to the neighbors. But I could be wrong.
Round-Up or similar killer-cide can damage rose growth, and it looks very similar to RRD. it’s possible that some spray in the area drifted onto your one bush.
usually, if the distorted area is localized, we cut that back a few inches below good clean growth, and wait.
it is possible for the spray damage to continue to travel through the plant, so we watch.
recovery can be a long long time, or never.
take a look at baldo villegas’ web pages, very excellent knowledge.
it was his suggestion to my query that Round-Up can cause the look of RRD.
also, some of his pix can be seen on a houston rose society page 5
keep us posted on actions and developments!
1 Like