Your best defense against aphids is your garden hose.
If you blast them off the buds with a blast of water, they're gone. Or you can just brush them off, which is very satisfactory.

But, Aggie, there's another thing maybe no one warned you about.
Going from a garden that is treated with pesticides, to one that is NOT is a fine thing.

But there is a transition period.

We made the change because pesticides triggered seizures in our dog.
For a whole year, this garden looked like H*LL.
We never thought about going back to pesticides because there was Frodo -- so we gritted our teeth and held on.

By the second year, a balanced ecology had begun to develop. We started to see birds swooping in to eat aphids and white fly. We started to see lizards. We removed roses that couldn't make it without fungicides. We added a few other sorts of plants.

Now, after a few years, things look better than they ever did with pesticides. But it didn't happen overnight.

Jeri

Well said, Jeri!

First year of growing roses I sprayed. Took a month to get rid of aphids completely
Now, with no pesticide in the garden, it takes about the same time for aphids to disappear...
Better without it; blooms are great, but I do not want to expose myself to it when spraying/mixing

Olya

Jeri, I noticed you mentioned lizards. Do the insecticides kill them too? I guess I never thought that throwing a granular insecticide on my roses would kill the lizards. I do have lots of lizards, but not as many as I used to. When we moved into this house it seemed like the yard was overtaken with lizards. I used to find dozens of lizard eggs in the dirt when I was planting flowers, but I don't find those anymore. Does fungicide kill them? I'm not planning on stopping the spray for blackspot, but that is because I didn't think it killed anything but fungus.

Aggie, I don't know whether pesticides killed lizards, or just drove them off. I suspect it might have killed 'em tho.

Not everyone may agree, but I really enjoy my lizards. They're just an extra little bit of life in the garden.
I know FOR SURE that we have ten times as many birds here as we used to, and that they are key in aphid control.

Jeri

My gloves are a good deterrent for the aphids. As I wander through the garden, I just rub them off. I have heard that once they are off, they cannot get back on, and I don't try to get every single one every day because the lady bugs are working also.

I wish I could think of something like this for the thrips, but I only spray the blossoms and buds with Concern, not the entire plant.

(Sometimes I do put the Concern in with my fungicide, but only a couple of times a year.)

Sammy

Start a diary; you may be surprised to find how short-lived some of these insect imbalances are. I remember my new rose garden in Dallas and how FREAKED I was when thrips got into my yellows & apricots-- and they were my main colors. By the 2nd & 3rd year it wasn't so much of an issue-- a few spoiled blooms early in the season was all. A few cold-water treatments in the spring have provided all the aphid control I've needed. With regular cold-water washes, I've never had any spider mite problems either in Dallas or here during high-risk hot weather. Oh please hang in there! It is so much simpler and more enjoyable to grow your roses without all the sprays.