I am not sure I have ever seen what’s happened to all my early flowering roses. My assumption is that late frost damaged the blooms before they opened with all the anthers being black upon opening and sometimes also the stigma… happy I did so much pollen storing last season but sad I am behind on the pollinating. Anyone else seen this before?
The mild winter and late cold snap which hit most of the country did a number on my early once bloomers. Only those which were hardy species hybrids and protected produced a real flush this spring. I seem to remember a couple of buds which had blackened as you describe, but most simply froze and died.
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It’s really sad, quite a few just fell off but the majority open a colour palette lower than usual with black anthers… every year is a different challenge I guess. We haven’t had any rain for a while, now when lots is about to flower we are getting over a week of it. A very poor start this year!
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Definitely a cold snap, especially if the weather has been mild and pushed new growth, will cause the blackened anthers and stigmas. I’ve even seen it on spinosissimas which were just about to open–after a hard spring freeze.
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Yeah it’s my spinos! Savage. I dream of one day having ample glass space
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It’s evil, hopefully I will have a semblance of the success I had last season
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The mild winters make for increased and earlier pests. In my climate the thrips are nuts this year and every post on facebook has ten people incorrectly diagnosing chili thrips damage as RRD. Isn’t climate change lovely?
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As time goes on I see more and more how absolutely terrible this will be for my season. I can’t believe how many of my blooms are unusable… many once flowering old roses with most blooms if not all blooms ruined. Thankfully I have some Portland’s and repeat blooming spinomissa… Or this would be a disaster