'Double Delight' Rose Foliage Weird Looking

[GardenGeisha]

What do you think could be the problem with my 'Double Delight' rose? Half of the foliage is medium green, and half is this pale yellow with green veins, some of which is pale red where there is new growth, and some of the yellowish-green leaves have big chunks missing and some have browned edges. This rose almost died out this winter. I had to severely prune it. Once it had recovered nicely, an idiot came along and weed-whacked it to the ground. Nonetheless, it has had a few pretty rose blossoms, but I'm worried about its color. I had thought about pruning the nice, best green canes, which are taller, to the height of the yellow ones, for uniformity, but I am scared to do so. Do you think this is chlorosis? The roses next to it have healthy looking, normal green-colored foliage.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

oop. posted my comment on the wrong page.

could it be a nutrient deficiency? or have you checked the stems that are affected to see if there is any bug damage?

 

[Jared77]

Don't prune them. Leave them alone and feed them with some good quality rose food. Let the healthy canes keep the plant going and when it's time prune it like normal. The poor quality foliage may not ever look great but if it's producing healthy canes and leaves it's ok.

 

[GardenGeisha]

I think it looks like snails have taken big bites out of the leaves; don't you? They are scalloped? Do you mean I should prune it in the fall? When is it time to prune it? I thought you could prune anytime? I generally prune the first weekend in April. Some people prune in the fall, for the winter, but I never have. Should I this year, with this rose? I have given it good rose food recently, as well as Epsom Salts when I noticed the leave were such a sickly, anemic-looking color. I don't know what the brown would be from on the leaves, but those scalloped edges certainly indicate some sort of pest. My Oriental lily petal edges were chewed up last night, and I see ants on the petal edges of the lilies this evening. Something ate an entire pumpkin plant last night. It was sawed off at ground level, and it was a pretty big pumpkin plant. I'm pretty sure snails got it, even though I didn't water yesterday.

 

[digitS']

The scalloped edges suggests pests. Snails are probably a likely one, altho they aren't many here. I'd be thinking first of slugs but both should leave trails. Earnings? There is an organic Sluggo now for all 3 pests.

Your rose looks like it is struggling and the weed whacking was only the start of it. That mechanical trimmer sometimes gets away from me! I took out a lily that ventured too far out in the lawn, 2 years in a row! It is a wonder the little thing had the energy to struggle above ground this spring.

The lily has its reserves and so should a rose. It is likely to be best for it not to make flowers this year and any more loss of foliage that it could use for photosynthesis is a high price for it to pay.

It would be a mistake, I'm guessing, to think that there is 4 times more nitrogen in chlorophyll than magnesium (C55 H70 O6 N4 Mg). There are 4x more N atoms than Mg. There's lots of atoms the plant can get from air & water.

Epsom salts may be a good idea only if there is a soil deficiency. I once read that rabbits could be deterred by a band of Epsom salts. I suspect that was a myth that circulated for a short time and, hopefully, doesn't come back. I decided I hadn't much to lose with a bed of lettuce that was getting serious damage. Wrong. Those plants lost color just as tho' there was a deficiency, probably because I raised the pH so much!

Live and learn. Unfortunately, lettuce doesn't have 9 lives like cats, lilies and roses. I don't have any good answers but less whacking and the easiest of care looks like a good idea. That sluggo isn't much more than a fertilizer if the pests don't eat it and die. If they do eat it then they are fertilizer.

Steve

 

[Hal]

The circular leaf cuts are from Leafcutter Bees, I used to see this working as a Horticulturalist quite often and also at home. Don't spray them, it might be unsightly but is generally harmless and the bees are beneficial insects believe it or not. The bees are rather clean and they cut the leaves so neatly that often the only harm is a loss of leaf surface area which the roses can handle.

Yellow leaves and green veins is a sign of iron deficiency, this I'm going on from your photograph as I am not there to inspect it first hand. Now two main things can cause iron deficiency, a genuine lack of iron and the more alkaline your pH is the less iron is available to the plant and no matter how much you add it won't correct the deficiency long term.
I'd recommend testing the pH of the soil by sampling from multiple spots near it.
Most elements are available in a sufficient quantity to roses at a pH of between 6.0 and 6.9, most rose society people that I know seem to recommend a pH of 6.5

Now if your pH is outside the recommended range, adjusting it will likely resolve the iron deficiency by making existing iron available to that plant. If the pH is already in the recommended range then you have a genuine iron deficiency and need to amend your soil by adding some iron, most likely some iron chelate since that is more easily made available to the plant than iron sulphate (I think it is sulfate in the US )

Before I forget, don't ever use the cheap probe type pH testers, they are useless as I have seen 3 stuck into the same soil sample giving 3 different results.
I don't know enough about the kits available to you to know which will give reasonable results unfortunately. If you can't find an accurate kit then your best bet is a lab that does soil testing.

 

[digitS']

Leaf cutter bees. That may be so! We have them here in the alfalfa and I imagine that there are alfalfa fields near GardenGeisha.

The soil here tend towards fairly high pH and that is also likely in Utah.

Chlorosis must be a symptom rather than a disease.

Steve

 

[GardenGeisha]

Lots of alfalfa here, but out of about 30 roses, this is the only one they've eaten on. Why would that be? Is a sickly rose tastier than the others?

 

[digitS']

We hear that bugs like sick plants.

Someone needs to explain why! We don't choose sick veggies to eat. When the potato bugs rip up an eggplant, the fruit becomes unbearably bitter.

Steve

 

[Hal]

Lots of alfalfa here, but out of about 30 roses, this is the only one they've eaten on. Why would that be? Is a sickly rose tastier than the others?

Leafcutter Bees actually do prefer one rose over another, in this case it is nothing to do with being sick but more the fact they prefer the leaf structure of some roses over another.
I've seen it many times myself someone with a row of roses (this also happened to myself) and they target one specific plant, in my case it was an iceberg in with a bunch of hybrid teas and one of my customers a specific hybrid tea out of about a dozen.
They know how to choose the best leaves for making their nest and there are multiple species of plants they visit but roses have large soft leaves which makes their job easy.

Leafcutter Bees and the iron deficiency are unrelated it is just luck both are going on at the same time.