RRD is rampant in my area. I've removed over 30 roses so far. It has affected every class of rose. Nothing is immune. Buying from one place over another isn't going to make any difference.
I suspect the woods or fields around you harbor multiflora roses. Out here,they were planted years ago as a barrier for livestock. Multiflora is seen as an easy host for the mite and the disease. Once the disease gets into the sap of any of your roses, YOU will spread it with your tools.
We are now carrying tubs of clorox wipes and wiping off the pruners between roses. It's quite a hassle when you have 350 roses!
SEveral years ago, when the disease first appeared here, we thought we could just prune off the affected branch. On some roses, that stopped it. On others, it did nothing to slow it down. I discovered that if i replanted another rose where I had removed a diseased one, the new one would (100% of the time), develop the disease.
I now plant a lilac or some other shrub in that spot so I am not tempted to place another rose there. No one knows for sure how long that area should be quarantined. i think maybe as long as it takes all the leftover roots to die completely.
We don't burn the roses here. We bag them up in a trash bag that won't decompose for 100 years, and send them to the dump.
i wouldn't advise taking out roses that are symptom-free, but I would suggest spacing any new ones several feet away from where the diseased ones were. I had a closely planted group of 6 Julia Childs. Three got RRD, the rest haven't. No clue why.
Don't let it stop you from growing roses. I know of at least one university that is researching a cure.
Oh...another thing. Knock Out roses get unfairly blamed for the spread of this disease. Here, what happened was, commercial areas used Knock Out roses by the thousands because they stay beautiful all year. Crews of "landscapers" came in to prune them, and used shears or string trimmers and just went down the rows, trimming all at the same height. If any one of the many thousands had the disease, all were then exposed. The landlords were reluctant to remove the infected roses, so they stayed at least 2 years before enough gardeners screamed about it. If those mass plantings had all been Julia Childs, that rose would have been blamed. Now our commercial areas are back to ugly green meatball shrubs.
