Announcer: We interrupt your regularly scheduled program with this late-breaking news story. In the field, your Suite101.com Rose Garden roving editor, Mark Whitelaw. Mark, what's going on down there in North Texas?
MW: I received a telephone call yesterday from one of our readers here in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. She was very concerned about some rather odd-looking foliage appearing on four of her recently planted, antique roses. After hearing her description, I sent her to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln website to see if her foliage and stems looked similar to what was shown at UNL.
Sure enough, it was. She has what we suspect to be rose rosette disease!
Announcer: This disease has been talked about before here on Suite101.com. It's fairly widespread in wild R. multiflora stands around the central and eastern half of North America. Why is a suspected find of rose rosette in North Texas so important to us here on Suite101.com?
MW: I took a sample of the suspect foliage and stems to a senior American Rose Society consulting rosarian and instructor for the Master Gardeners Program, Mr. Jim McCarty. Jim mentioned that two of his own roses had similar problems, both showing signs just this year. One rose, 'Graham Thomas,' was already dead. He also stated that our senior horticulturist at the Ft. Worth Botanical Garden had also called to report his rose garden had become infested with this same disease.
The roses in all three gardens came from or could be traced back to either of two growers here in Texas. These growers not only supply retail and wholesale antique and Old Garden roses around the South, they also mail order many of these same roses throughout North America.
Announcer: So you're saying that roses harboring this deadly viral disease could have been mail ordered or shipped to nurseries and gardeners throughout the U.S. and Canada; possibly even overseas?
MW: Yes, that is possible. But we don't know for sure if this is indeed rose rosette disease. This week, we are sending a sample from our reader's garden to Texas A & M University for confirmation of our suspicions.
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