Monday, October 20, 2014

I was very sad to take it out....good-bye Perdita Rose


I have had my Perdita Rose for about 25 years or so. It has always been a buggy disease prone rose. But I love it. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous.


A couple of years ago I started to take better care of it and try to get the diseases under control. I had only ever pruned it, so the disease laden leaves would be on the ground re-infecting it. So I assumed. So year before last, after pruning, I took my little hand rake and meticulously raked up every single leaf. Even the ones between canes. I was certain the rose would be somewhat improved. I was wrong. It make no difference. It had a major case of Rust, Black Spot, Mildew plus aphids like mad. So last year, I pruned it down again, raked up every leaf and top dressed it with mulch. I was sure I'd see improvement. Again, I was wrong. 

This year we had the hottest and driest summer I've ever seen on the coast. In spite of perfect rose weather, it still was ravaged by disease. I looked up Perdita in the David Austin catalogue. It is listed as 'disease resistant'. So I knew I just have a dud. So today. Today was the day. Below are a few pictures of leaves. All the leaves looked awful.




And the garden with the rose taken out.



No comments: