My rose bush is poorly

[whataboutbob]

I have an old fashion rose ( Mme Hardy). I know I should have dealt wit this earlier but back in August this appeared on some of the stems. What is it and how can I eradicate it? Thanks for any advice.

It’s hard to see from the picture, but it looks as if those twigs might be dead. Cut one and see if the inside is green or brown, or scrape the bark and see if there is green underneath. Green is alive, brown is dead.

Either way, I would cut out all the funny looking wood, and prune the bush into a decent shape at the same time

Thanks for looking trethew. It looks like flecks of ash on the stem.
I’ll re prune.

Having had a google around I now think it could be scale insect

I’d be surprised if it’s scale but happy to be corrected. Maybe mould/ fungus on dead wood?? Can you post a close up?

I’ll take another pic tomorrow. I’ve read up a bit and the pics on the internet are very similar. Apparently it affects white roses more, and this is a white rose.

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=920
Correction, it doesn’t only affect white roses but it appears there is a subset of scale insects that does

Oh yes. That does look like it. Have to say in all my years gardening I’ve never come across this. I’ve had scale on camellias, which are tiny flat brown lumps on the back of the leaves

Yes I didn’t even know roses could get it. My poor Madame hardy hasn’t had the easiest of lives in my little London backyard. I think part of the problem could be we were away at the height of the hot summer and it didn’t get watered. Scale ( like most plant diseases I guess) gets a foothold when plants are stressed. My options are to spray, or prune hard and remove the rest manually.