Hello everyone, I have two roses that are looking a little ill today. One is La Reine, the other is Louise Odier. These plants are about 2 years old, have been kept in a sun room all winter and until today looked quite healthy. Both of them have 5+ new buds on them and are growing quickly. Today when I went to look at the plants, these 2 roses were both starting to wilt. The buds are completely drooped over. We had a stretch of very warm weather for the past 2 weeks that the roses tolerated excellently. The thing is, last night it went down to probably the mid-30s. These roses should be hardy in my area (Zone 5b) and they have been totally fine all winter, but I'm thinking the sudden change in temp could have bothered them. Nothing else has changed with these plants. Is the droopiness something that could be caused by the temperature change? What can I do to help these plants now?
is the sun room enclosed & heated? or is it open to the elements? or is it enclosed and you opened the windows during the warm spell? when was the last time you watered them? if the room is heated and there was unexpected extra sun warmth for a period of time, they may be dried out. did you take a good look for bugs? aphids come to mind - this time of year they aren't really active; with the extremely warm temps, they may be out & about though. if the room is open to the elements and/or you opened the windows then that might be the problem. since you've had them in a protected situation, they may be reacting to the cold temps - especially if you had the room open to outside temps and didn't close the windows when the temp dipped so low. that shouldn't really be the case if they're hardy in your zone (or if they were somewhat exposed to outside temps all winter) - keeping them potted does change things like that a bit though. they might just need repotting now that they're in full-growth period.
The strangest thing happened. I just went in to check them again and the buds are standing up, as straight as can be. I am glad that they look OK now, but this is puzzling! I'll have to look at them tomorrow morning and see if they wilt again. They may have been drooping like this ever since they got the buds, but today was the first time I looked at them in the morning while it was still chilly in the room. Usually I'm out there in the afternoon when the sun has warmed everything up. To answer your questions, the sun room is enclosed, but not heated or cooled. The screens were open during the warm spell. The plants have been watered regularly and there are no signs of bugs.
the stronger sun at this time of year combined with the warmer temps recently added to the enclosed area may be causing it to be overly hot and that's causing the wilting. i'd make it habit to open at least one window around noontime and then close it again for night until such time as the temps are consistantly warm enough to leave the windows open all the time for the summer.
If the rose drooped, then recovered, it is reassuring - this would suggest that the root system is healthy enough to respond to adversities. The drooping is then, likely to be due to external factors, the most likely being overheating. The temperature in an unventilated sunroom in full sun can reach amazing levels even if it is cool outside.
