Rose bush pruning?

My rose bushes had black spot fever on the leaves.... I am spraying them every week, but all the leaves have died and fell off. The bushes are still blooming roses though. All that is left of the plant is thorny stems...should I just cut down to the ground? Or is this the wrong time of year to do this?

Rose bush pruning?
No, don't cut it. The leaves will return. Go ahead and continue your weekly treatments of black spot and just be patient. As a matter of fact, don't prune at all because your rose needs all the energy it can get just to regrow the foliage. You can pop the spent flowers off, but other than that, just let it do it's thing. I had a similar situation when Japanese beetles stripped one of my roses clean in one evening. It came back just fine.
Reply:All rose bushes need to be pruned. Get a book on gardening.
Reply:lol, dont have any idea on the black spot thing, but they love warm water, makesa them grow like hell
Reply:prune the roses in the fall.or spring before the plant starts growing for the season.

they very well may come back from this attack.

and go to the library and read a good book about pruning roses, be prepared to take notes.



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Reply:It is reccomended that you cut the roses back , but not all the way. Because the stems are infested with blackspot, also try not to water them from the top, it adds to the blackspot problem I think you can just spray the ground around the roses now, and be sure to pick up all the diseased leaves.

you can leave the bushes that height, if you wish but I would reccomend cutting about 1/2 off the height, otherwise they will start looking what I call leggy Once you cut them they will start budding back out..unless the deer eat them ot the Japanese beetles get to them like they did to mine :(