June Roses: Second Blooms, Diseases, and Pests

After the spring peak bloom in May, when you prune the roses, repeat-blooming and ever-blooming varieties will produce second and third flushes of flowers.

In my garden, the second bloom is happening this June, but June, the month of the second bloom, is also the rainy season. We have days of continuous rain, sometimes torrential downpours like someone turned a bucket over, and then suddenly the temperature spikes as if summer has arrived...

Roses, like humans, can feel under the weather during this time, and they often don't bloom as beautifully as the first spring flush...

They might droop from the heavy rain, the petals might get damaged, or the buds that worked so hard to form might 'ball' and fail to open... It's hard to see them in perfect condition, and besides, when it's raining, you can't really sit and enjoy them slowly anyway (^^;

And then, after the explosive blooming of the first flush, the exhausted roses become more susceptible to diseases.

First, in my garden, 'black spot' begins to appear.

The first rose in my garden to develop black spot is the climbing rose 'Uncle Walter.' Just as the first bloom is coming to an end, spots start to appear here and there.

At first, it's really just a few spots, so when I notice them, I pluck the leaves off by hand. But while I'm distracted by caring for other plants that are still in their first bloom, it spreads across the entire plant before I know it.

Following a bit behind Uncle Walter, black spot also starts on 'Rainy Blue'.

Rainy Blue has many small leaves, so it spreads at a speed that plucking them when I notice isn't enough to keep up with. And in the blink of an eye, the leaves turn yellow and fall off in tatters (T_T)

Even with applying fungicide every two weeks, black spot still appears. I've just given up on that (^^;

When I first started growing roses, I never imagined my own roses would get this black spot, and I was so worried that I even contacted the garden shop where I bought the seedlings to ask if they would be okay like this (^^;

After five years, I've reached the point where I think, 'Well, black spot is just part of having roses,' and I don't panic at all anymore. Since trying to eliminate it perfectly just causes stress, I follow my motto of 'low-effort care.'

My roses are all mature plants now, so even if they get a bit of black spot, they won't die. They might lose some leaves, which could slightly reduce their vitality and affect the autumn bloom, but there's a limit to what I can do as a weekend gardener, so I continue with the care I can manage with a 'whatever' attitude.

If you've just started growing roses and have young plants, it might be better to pick off the leaves with black spots as much as you can (^^;

And as it gets hotter, the insects become more active. One morning, the tips of the precious new shoots are drooping, looking as if they are dehydrated, but this is actually the work of the 'rose curculio.' I don't know what kind of ability they have, but they target the new shoots perfectly ("(-""-)"

And so, the second blooms of my white 'Bolero' roses are blooming beautifully, but when I went to cut them to decorate my room and took a closer look, I found so, so many thrips ((+_+)).
These tiny, almost invisible insects called 'thrips' seem to crawl into the flowers and buds to suck their sap, and they end up making my precious white roses look dirty and blackened (T_T).

This year, my Château de Cheverny, which has a citrus scent, has had an outbreak of insects I've never seen before, and I'm realizing every day that insects love fragrant roses too "(-""-)".

Once the rainy season ends and the intense heat arrives, the flowers will stop blooming beautifully, so until then, I think I will let the buds that are currently on the plants bloom.

My climbing roses are also blooming with their second flush here and there, but I plan to deadhead them early so I can have them bloom again in the autumn.