Aphids attack rose buds

So far this year, I see no sign of black spot disease or bristly rose slugs (so far...), instead I've found an intruder that I've not seen on the rose bushes before: aphids (as usual, qualify that with a "what I believe to be...").

Aphids on a hybrid tea rose bud (grrr!)

Aphids on a knockout rose bud.

Aphid up close.

I've found them on both rose bushes (hybrid tea and knockout), and they seemed to favor the buds, which made them very easy to spot and spray with insecticidal soap. So far it seems to be doing the job.

I found this bit of information about aphids on a site I found while searching around that might explain why they're here:

When days become shorter in the fall, both males and females are born. They mate, and then females lay eggs on stems or in bark crevices. The eggs overwinter and hatch the following spring.

Last year there were some aphids semi-infesting a mandevilla I had planted near-by. I let them live since they weren't doing too much harm - needless to say I won't be making that mistake again!

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!

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.