Roses – beautiful but delicate with Washington rain | The Compleat Home Gardener

Published 10:30 am Thursday, June 11, 2026

June is the month for roses and in Western Washington our cool summers make growing roses a joy and a challenge.

This is a good time to visit a nursery and see and sniff the roses in bloom and offered for sale in containers. Roses growing in large pots can be transplanted into the garden now or enjoyed as container plants and then transplanted into the garden once they go dormant in the late fall or winter.

The most common complaint about growing roses in climates with lots of rain (yes, that would be us) is the fungal infections that spoil the leaves. Here are the most asked questions about black spot on roses:

Q. The leaves on my rose plants are turning yellow with dark spots. I am pretty sure this is black spot disease, but I do not want to spray chemicals on my plants. What can be done?

A. Black spot is a fungus among us encouraged by cloudy, rainy weather. To discourage the spread do these five things now:

Remove all infected leaves starting from the lowest leaves and working your way up the plant until you get to healthy green leaves.

Put a fresh mulch on top of the soil after the infected leaves are gone. This will seal in the disease spores that have fallen onto the ground and are waiting to reinfest the rose plants when rain splashes them up to the stem.

Avoid wetting the foliage of rose plants when you water. No overhead sprinklers.

Give the roses lots of elbow room to encourage good air circulation. Plenty of wind and sunshine keeps the fungus away.

Keep the black spot from an encore performance by spraying with Neem Oil as a preventative measure. Neem Oil is a natural derivative from the Neem tree that will coat the rose leaves making it difficult for the black spot spores to get growing. It works best as a preventative rather than as a cure for a rose already infested with the disease.

Q. What roses are most resistant to black spot disease?

A. Lazy gardeners rejoice as there are many roses now resistant to fungal infections including black spot. Look for roses in the Flower Carpet series, the Knock Out roses and many of the David Austin English roses. There is also a hybrid musk rose called ‘Balllerina’ with pink blooms that defies the blemishes of black spot disease. Keep in mind that a well fed and watered rose will naturally have more disease and insect resistance.

Q. Any organic controls for aphid on roses?

A. The answer is at the tip of your fingers. Just pinch the aphid clusters that congregate on the rose buds and smash the aphid with your fingers that you find under the leaves. This will attract the lady buds and other predators because injured insects send out signals of distress so much like vultures are alerted to road kill, lady bugs move in on injured aphid. No need to be squeamish. Wear gloves if you must and imagine you are saving the rose plants from the pain caused by the sap sucking, sinister aphid.

Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of “Easy Answers for Great Gardens” and several other books. For answers to gardening questions, visit plantersplace.com and click “As The Expert”. Copyright for this column owned by Marianne Binetti. For more gardening information, she can be reached at her website, www.binettigarden.com.