Well... it will soon be the end of the season and my high hopes of spraying with milk only happened once. Working around the rain it did not seem worthwhile to spray. I did do a sulphur spray at the beginning of the season and one midseason. The midseason spraying was rinsed off after 30 minutes as it would have burned the leaves if left on. It still seems that my initial tact for dealing with blackspot by growing resistant roses is the best. Some of the roses were amazing, particularly Ping Lim's. Standouts in the garden were: Firecracker, Outta the Blue, Irish Hope, Bolero, Yantai, Easter Basket, Kashmir, Carefree Spirit, Ruby Meidiland, Fourth of July, Cadenza, Ramblin Red, Caramel Antique, Coral Cove, Pucker Up and Yellow Submarine. I am sure with better soil, fertilizer, air circulation, watering and more sun that my roses could do better and yet the conditions I have are realistic for my situation. Some roses continue to be outstanding within these limitations.

After much research on black spot in roses will try Dr. Jeff Gillman's suggestion of 1 part milk (skim is fine) to 2 parts water once weekly. Another article suggests 15 grams dry milk powder to 1 liter water sprayed on a sunny day. This formulation would be less expensive. I still may do some dormant oil (1 tablespoon/gal) with (4 tablespoons/gal) lime sulfur spray or immunox spray to get rid of any overwintering black spot before the season begins. Also will work on a good cleanup by removing all the old mulch from last year before putting down new mulch. Any infected leaves were already removed last fall. Would really like to get on top of blackspot problems once and for all.