Rose bush updates

I've got 3 issues with the rose bushes this year, so I'll address them each separately.

Aphids

The new rose bush intruder of 2013: aphids. I sprayed them a few times and haven't seen them since. Yay! 

Bristly Rose Slugs

Without fail, I spotted some leaf damage on both rose bushes (forget exactly when this was, sometime since May 15th, I guess); turned over the leaves to find my little wormy "friends" munching away. This year I didn't delay in spraying them with insecticidal soap. I did this a few times, and so far it seems to have worked very effectively as I haven't noticed any new damage. Seems that the key is to spray quickly as possible with these buggers!

Black Spot Disease

This is biggest question mark of this post. Last year I went and purchased some fungicide to treat the black spot disease on the hybrid tea rose bush. 

Daconil Fungicide

 I brought it home only to find that it should apparently be applied in the spring, at least I think that's what it's saying. The directions are horrible. Not only does it not say how to spray it on the plant or even what to spray (I assume they mean to spray the infected leaves?), but they give specific cryptic directions for rose bushes for the first application: "spring bud break". Um, what?

Spring bud break?

In any case, there is one flower in bloom right now (more buds on the way!), it's kind of spring - ok maybe a little late, but the black spot was spreading so a week or so ago I decided to just spray the infected leaves and see what happened. As far as I know nothing has really changed, but it doesn't seem like it has spread anymore either. I'm still monitoring, but this is what some of the leaves looked like as of a few days ago:

Hopefully it works because last year by the end of the season it hardly had any leaves left since they were all infected. It'd be nice to eradicate it for good somehow. I wish the instructions on the fungicide were better. I have no idea if I need to reapply or when or how or where.

Blackspot and rose slugs. Again.

Both the black spot disease and bristly rose slugs are back again this year. The poor rose bushes just can't catch a break.

Diseased leafs

Both black spot and early signs of rose slugs.

What have we here?

Only the hybrid tea rose bush has the black spot disease, but both have the rose slugs. I immediately sprayed the slugs with the same insecticidal soap I used last year and haven't noticed anymore since.

I've also been clipping off and disposing of the leafs infected by the black spot disease, but honestly there's not many more leaves left, so I'm getting concerned. Hopefully it grows more soon. We have, however, been joying many beautiful blooms this year!

Rose slugs are back

Anger.

I sprayed them with Insecticidal soap again.
That is all.

Free of bristly rose slugs

After one application of insecticidal soap and a couple of spot sprays in the following days, I haven't seen a single rose slug since. There are also many new leafs now none of which have been munched on. I'm going to call this a victory!

Trying insecticidal soap

This is now my third try at getting rid of the bristly rose slugs and I had hoped that it wouldn't come to this as I generally don't like using insecticide if I don't have to. But, yeah, I had to - they just annoy me that much. I went out and purchased some that said that it will kill rose slugs (sawfly larva) and ended up buying this:

Garden Safe Insecticidal Soap

Yesterday I sprayed it over all of the leaves (tops and bottom). I found some slugs on it and made sure that the product was working - it seemed to. However, today I still found more... go figure. I don't have a plan D, so I'm really hoping that this works. I think it will.

The knockout rose bushes look to be growing some new branches, so soon there'll be some fresh new unchewed leaves. The hybrid tea is done blooming and will hopefully soon do the same as well.

Flour as brislty rose slug remedy = fail

As already reported, I have continued to find more bristly rose slugs on the rose bushes after experimenting with the "flour attack". Unfortunately, I must say that this approach has failed. It's time for a new battle plan yet again; this time I think I will give insecticidal spray a try.

No pictures as I think my last post is enough for a lifetime.

Rose bush is in bloom!

All three rose buds have finally bloomed! And the blooms are absolutely beautiful. The color is absolutely stunning. See for yourself:

Crescendo rose blossom

If only something didn't take bites out of the bud before it bloomed. I don't know what it was, but I did find a bristly rose slug on one once...

Fed up with rose slugs

I've had it. After nearly 2 weeks of squashing bristly rose slugs on the rose bushes every singly day, I can't take it anymore. One time I found 5 of them on a single leaf - they were extremely small and must have just hatched. When were the eggs laid?? I'd like to have a "chat" with the mother sawflies (the bristly rose slugs adult stage of life). They just keep coming and it's driving me nuts. An article on the subject by Fine Gardening Magazine says:

Depending on the species, there can be one to many generations each year -- one for the European rose slug, at least two for the curled rose slug, and six for the bristly rose slug. 

Six?! So does this mean that they lay eggs six times throughout the year? A month? I don't quite understand, but it doesn't sound very exciting to me either way.

So, naturally, it's time for a new battle plan. One of the "solutions" for fending off the rose slugs that I found on a forum suggested sprinkling flour on the leaves of the plant and then rising it off after 24 hours. Information on this approach is basically non-existent and I saw several posts of people saying they would try it and report back, but never did. I only found one person who actually claimed it worked. And apparently, that's enough for me, or maybe I'm just a little crazy, but I decided to do a little experiment to see for myself if it works. So, I did.

On Wednesday, I took the bin of flour outside and threw it all over the all three rose bushes (both the tops of the leaves and I also tried to throw it up from a low position to get underneath them as well).

Rose bush covered with flour

Then the next day I hosed them off (the flour was surprisingly difficult to get off)...

So, did it work? I did a quick hunt today to see if I could find any. I only searched the new rose bush and found...... two of them - largeish ones:

Large bristly rose slugs

I couldn't notice from a distance, but while taking photos of them, I realized that they were actually still munching on the leafs even after I pulled them off! It turned out to actually be rather interesting to observe, so I also took some video:

I'd say I caught them in the act! Just watching the video makes me feel angry...

It is worthy to note that I didn't find any small ones, which is typically what I have been finding lately. These two must have evaded my previous hunts. It's possible that these two were large enough to be able to survive the "flour attack", while the small ones can't? It's hard to say, because I have no idea how throwing flour all over a plant is supposed to get rid of these things, but I also don't really care as long as it works.

So, the final verdict is still out. I'll see if any more show up in the coming days.

I spoke way too soon

I spoke way too soon on two accounts:

1) The mole. Wouldn't you know it, I noticed a new mole tunnel in the backyard just yesterday, albeit a short one, but one nonetheless. So much for the cat theory - I was rooting for that one!

But of far more concern to me...

2) The bristly rose slugs are back with a vengeance and on all THREE rose bushes, including and especially the newly planted one:

Damage from young bristly rose slugs on our new rose bush.

Needless to say, THIS MEANS WAR! (again). I overturned just about every single leaf on the new bush and killed over 40 of them by hand (yes, I counted). Most of them were very small. On the other bushes I found less, but still plenty (10 or less on each).  I'm more tempted now to use a insecticidal soap (or maybe try the flour approach), although, in turning over every leaf, I saw just how many other little critters have made the bush their home and I'd prefer not to kill everything on the plant. For now, my battle plan is to have several waves of slug hunts for the next couple of days to see if I can get them all by hand.

Death to bristly rose slugs

Sometimes a gardener must go to war in order to protect his plants. I know that bristly rose slugs don't deserve to die, however, neither do our rose bushes, so one or the other must go: bristly rose slug or rose bush? Hm. The next day after my post I went on a hunt for as many slugs as I could find on the plant and surprisingly I only found about 5 on one and not one on the other. I'm thinking that I may have had some help from the birds as I noticed a few small feathers in one of them - more power to them! I hope they enjoyed a tasty treat, because I didn't get much enjoyment out of squishing them, except that they won't be doing any more damage to the helpless rose bushes any more. I think this little pest problem is solved for now, so I guess I don't need to try the flour approach - oh well, maybe next time. I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on them, though.

Something is eating the rose bushes!

I haven't blogged about this before, but for a few weeks now - almost since it began been growing this spring - I have noticed something was eating the leaves of the rose bushes (not the newly planted one, thankfully). The leaves look like this:

Leaf damage to rose bush.

The new rose bush planted earlier this year appears to be ok and is growing quite nicely now:

The Crescendo rose bush has many more leaves now and
is thankfully is not being eaten by the rose slugs.

I wasn't sure what was causing it - until today. I happened to look under one of the leaves and found this little guy:

Bristly Rose Slug on rose bush leaf

It looks and sounds like Bristly Rose Slugs to me judging by my completely unscientific internet search. From my little research, possible remedies include:

1. picking them off by hand (if there are only a few)
2. spraying with insecticidal soap
3. sprinkling flour on the bush for 24 hours, then rinsing it off (?)

I don't know who came up with the 3rd one or why that would work, but apparently it has for some people. I may give #1 a try since it doesn't seem like there are very many, but I'm very intrigued by #3.

One thing's for sure: I've need to act quickly because it's getting worse and worse every day.