My Rose Blooms And Shoots Are Turning Brown

Question

Hi.
On some of my roses, the shoots and blooms are turning brown and shriveling up. Would you know what might be causing this and what I could do about it?
I am in Melbourne Australia, and this is the second set of blooms for the summer. The first set was fine, but this is happening with the second set.
Thanks for your help.

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Answer 1

It looks and sounds like sun scorch or high temps scorch. There are times when the sun's intensity and the heat it generates cause severe stress to the rosebushes. The rosebushes simply cannot take up enough water fast enough to prevent the burning of the foliage and especially the tender blooms. There are a couple things you can do to bring them some relief until the temps cool. One is to mix a product called Super Thrive into the water that you water the roses with. Do this every time they need watering until the temps break, it helps them deal with the heat stress. It will likely not help with the scorching or burning of foliage and blooms much but will keep the rosebushes strong so that when temps cool they will come back nicely. The other thing you can do is to build some light colored shade structures for the roses that will provide them with some shade during the hottest times of the day. This can be done with big light or white colored umbrellas that are tied off to stakes driven into the ground.