Oh man, Redsox, I feel for you. :(

Hugs,

Debbie

Zone 6 sounds like a tough place to garden. Roses are not appropriate to every climate. Gardening should make you happy and energized, so grow what will make you happy!

Spring is almost here, keep a sunny outlook!

Redsox: I'm so sorry you're discouraged, and yes what you describe sounds gross. However, if it is aphids, there is a rather satisfying way of getting rid of them - a strong stream of water. I usually hold onto the stem I'm spraying to give it some support, and then let rip with the hose (or even a strong spray bottle, for more tender plants). The aphids wash off with little resistance. You'll need to repeat the process as new eggs hatch, but this will give you results quickly.

I don't know anything about whitefly...are you seeing actual damage on your plants? If not, I'd stick with hosing off your roses daily, while waiting for the predator bugs to hatch.

Best,
Lara

"don't know anything about whitefly...are you seeing actual damage on your plants? If not, I'd stick with hosing off your roses daily, while waiting for the predator bugs to hatch."
I agree!
I'm just now removing the leaves used as winter protection. So far, I've lost no roses except one eaten by rabbits. All the rest are showing some growth, at least from the ground.
Perhaps you uncovered or pruned too early?

Aphids, probably, most of them. They have arrived here, just a week after pruning. I'm squishing for the time being. It happens at this time of year. Bugs eat plants. Keep squishing and squirting with water. Good bugs will come.

Hugs, Debbie! I too have had a lot of disappointments. I lost 3 potted roses already which is pretty darn frustrating, but at least you tried your best and put in your all! My outdoor grown HTs are happily growing and leafing out--they got absolutely zero winter protection- no mulch, no leaves, nothing!!!-- and we had weather breaking cold, snow and icy weather in Kansas City this year. Even my most hated Queen Elizabeth in the poor drainage, tree root-infested, full shade area (I was planning to shovel prune and give her away)is coming up gangbusters. It's rather painful to see that roses that I abused are doing fine, and the three I tried so hard to save and seemed to flourish and recover, all suddenly grew sick in March 2010 and died.

Serena, isn't that always the way!

Thanks everyone. I have had aphids before: but NOT LIKE THIS. The brown ones are covering every stem at the top. GROSS! My Husband said it is not THAT gross. But, it is.

On the HTs I will give a couple more weeks and if I don't see ANY growth, I guess I will replace with some other roses I already have waiting in pots.

I just saw a bunch of aphids on my baby Don Juan. They are indeed gross. But I just squish them off with my fingers. Very satisfying. Hang in there!!!! This was a bad winter. All my stuff is at least one month behind. But at least no late frosts this year. We've got to concentrate on the good things.

Redsox - I can understand your frustration. But hang in there. Aphids are an easy fix, thankfully. And I thought several of my roses were dead, but have leafed out amazingly over the past week.

Of course, I garden in a much easier climate. But when I see my roses bloom, it makes up for all the trouble they have caused. And I figure as I learn, my roses will improve dramatically! lol

Good luck with your roses. Keep us posted on how they fared. :)

Aphids ARE disgusting...and they come in MANY colors...lucky us!

I an getting some aphids in my greenhouse. I just leave the doors open for a couple of days and they disappear.

use a flour sifter or large sieve and go out and dust the tops. In about 15 min. turn the hose on their corpses. The flour clogs up their sticky little body and suffocates them. No poison for the ladybugs to follow. I agree they look very nasty. But this is easy to do. good luck

Sorry to hear about your problems, best of luck and I hope things turn out good for you!

I just saw my first aphid yesterday and my roses are barely leafed out yet. We may have a bang-up year here for aphids and all sorts of bugs because we had such a mild winter and early spring. I am dreading japanese beetle season more than usual.

I have used the hose jet stream method and it does work, just repeat every few days for a couple weeks. I also use soap but instead of buying insecticidal soap, I mix a bit of Murphy's Oil Soap with water in a sprayer. Kills the aphids good when there are too many and doesn't seem to burn the leaves. I probably use the soap more often for aphids because it's easier than dragging the hose from one end of the garden to the next.

I've had HTs planted with exposed bud unions wait until May before sending out basal breaks--how were we to know that the planting instructions were WRONG! We now bury the bud unions when we plant. In addition, we waited until the weather drops into the 20s before winter protecting our roses with burlap, to insure that they have really hardened off for winter. This means we didn't actually do our winter protection until December 19. But, since we cut our losses to acceptable 5 years ago (one HT) and zero three years ago--we now have to deal with Rose Acquisition Disease--we now have 200 roses, including 40 exhibition HTs.

I admit that we winter protected fairly late this year. I can't say if that caused the problem but maybe.

veilchen, how much of Murphy's Oil Soap do you put in a gallon?

Zack_Lau, "we now have to deal with Rose Acquisition Disease."

Lol, how funny! :)

Debbie

Teka, I put about one tablespoon in a 32 oz sprayer, so I guess 4 Tbsp to a gallon? It's not exact as I don't measure.

Red Sox,
I am sorry that you are experiencing these problems. Don't be discouraged. It's Spring! Your garden will be shining in just a few weeks.

Smile. Aphids are just temporary. You could have midge and RRD like we got here...

Harry

Sounds like a bad case of aphids. They are just starting to show up in my area. All the small birds are getting fat off of them.

Lighten up, Sox! The white dots are probably just aphid shucks (empty exoskeletons). I don't know that aphids ever do terrible damage--never have for me-- and they always subside over time as the predators multiply and gobble. Northern growers have to prune their HTs to the ground almost every year, and I used to do so before our winters started warming around 25 years ago. I had to cut one HT all the way down this year, and it is just now starting to sprout. It will bloom in late May and be fine.

OK, I will chill on the aphid situation. But none of my HTs have sprouted at all.

redsox, if you can post a good closeup image of what you're seeing I could try to give you an idea of what they are. I can't make any promises, but I do identify insects for a living.

Hi, thank you for offering but I have found my camera is not of a high enough quality to get really close closeups. But now I am thinking they are aphids.

Welcome to the three seasons of rose growing!
1. Aphid season
2. Blackspot season
3. Japanese beetle season

Somewhere in there a lot of lovely blooms appear, which makes 1 - 3 all bearable! ;-))

Diane - you left out THRIPS, which ruin my blooms many times over what the aphids do - argh! At least I can wash the aphids off, the thrips call for some kind of insecticide, which I haven't ever resorted to. AND they bite, too! Do ladybugs eat them? Does anything?

redsox, try not to be too discouraged although it's hard when you look forward to your blooms and some bug ruins it!

Lynn

I can't recall whether there are any ladybugs that eat thrips, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn there are. Lacewing larvae eat thrips sometimes, and so also do predatory thrips (yes, there are predatory thrips species, too). I also wouldn't be surprised to learn there are predatory mites that sometimes eat thrips as well.

However, when thrips are a problem on your roses obviously whatever predators are there aren't controlling the thrips well enough to keep your plants sufficiently clean for the roses to be beautiful.

I have heard that every aphid is born pregnant. Is this true? Luckily, I've never had much of a problem with them. There are always many ladybugs in my garden. Good luck!

Juliet

And then there is vole season... But of course there is no one season for voles. They're always there. They can take down the biggest rose and there is not much you can do to stop them that doesn't involve an awful lot of work.

Rose Slugs! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I have heard that every aphid is born pregnant. Is this true?

Every aphid? No, that's not true. However, with many of the species most commonly found as garden pests that does happen more often than it does not. A one thousand-fold increase in an aphid population in just a few weeks is not unheard of. The most common aphid pest species are extraordinarily well adapted to exploiting plant resources that are only available for a short time.

Redsox,
sorry to hear about your problem, however one spray of Orthene or Malathion will solve your problem quickly and easily. Water streams do work (for all of about 24 hours) and in the process it wets your roses and will promote blackspot and mildew so don't try that. Soaps also work but are largely rendered ineffective after a couple of days.
It amazes me sometimes that people will just go from one "natural" control method to another and not receive satisfactory results while in the meantime their bushes are being destroyed by insect pests...especially when chemical controls are at their disposal. I hope you don't give up on your roses...they are beautiful to have...don't let these "all natural" fantatics on here steer you away from using chemical controls when needed.

redsox, if it makes you feel better, my roses are swarmed with aphids. It seems to be the thing this year. I had to go around with a spray bottle with soapy water, had to fill it 3 times. Of course the roses furthest away from the hose have the most aphids!

I did see some ladybugs and ladybug larve so maybe the problem will take care of it's self.

Awwe, Redsox...dont give in...Hang in there...our climate is contrary most days and the beastly insects are abundant, but we can grow some beautiful roses here...I just noticed a lot of my new buds are covered in the green meanies too...I used water to wash them off, and then flicked whatever was left...also saw the beginnings of rose slugs...tsk tsk...but you and I both know that it is all worth it once those blooms begin to mesmerize our souls :)