Finding black spots on rose leaves can signal a greater issue than just pests.
If you notice black spots on your rose plants, having some tips for treating and preventing disease can help you grow healthier roses long-term.
Even though roses aren’t difficult to grow, black spots can quickly take over and demolish your entire garden.
Nourishing your rose plants just to have them get black spots and wilt can be discouraging to say the least, don’t let black spots get the best of your garden!
In this post, I’m going to fill you in on how to treat black spot on rose leaves along with some simple methods for prevention.
What Are Black Spots On Rose Leaves?
When you see black spots on rose leaves, this is a fungal disease that is caused by Diplocarpon Rosae.
This disease progressively weakens your rose plant, accelerating death.
Because black spot disease can harm your plant rather quickly, knowing how to treat and prevent the fungus is even more important.
How To Treat Black Spots On Rose Leaves
There are several ways that you can treat black spots after you’ve noticed them.
You could either…
- Prune-infected leaf stems
- Spray solution
- Use Insecticidal soaps with added fungicides
- Use cold-pressed neem oil
- Spread sulfur powder on garden beds
Pruning
This black spot fungus treatment helps slow the progression of fungal disease in your rose plant.
When pruning spotted rose leaves, you’ll want to cut 8 inches below the part of infection.
Be sure to also disinfect your sheers between snips to prevent infecting other parts of the plant.
Spray Solution
One of the simplest ways to treat black spots on rose leaves is to spray a solution on the leaves.
Fungicidal sprays with copper, neem oil, and even sulfur can help treat black spots on rose leaves.
How To Make Your Own
A homemade remedy for black spots on roses can be made with 1 tbsp of baking soda.
Mixing the soda with horticultural or liquid soap in a gallon of water can help prevent & treat black spot.
Purdue university has a guide to creating organic fungicidal spray, check out the PDF below.
Vinegar For Rose Plants
By using a vinegar based solution, you can treat and prevent black spots.
To make your own homemade vinegar solution, add 1 tbsp vinegar or baking soda and 1 tbsp canola oil to one gallon of water.
Hydrogen Peroxide For Black Spots On Roses
Instead of the vinegar method, you can mix a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide with a liter of water.
Pour the peroxide mix into a spray bottle and spray the rose leaves.
Now that you know how to treat black spots, you can grow rose plants healthier and more abundant!
Be sure to read our next post on how to cure yellow leaves on tomato plants!