I use a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid with a quart of water in a spray bottle. Make sure to use something mild with no phosphates or degreasers. Spray in the morning or evening, not in the heat of the day and spray the top and underside of the plant. This works for aphids. I don't know about the caterpillars. Good luck!

For the most part, I let the good bugs eat the bad bugs. Things usually stay in pretty good balance this way. I don't worry about aphids or Japanese beetles. I will, however, mist susceptible buds with Merit to kill thrips ... they'll ruin a whole bush full of flowers before you realize what's happened.

Connie

I don't expend much effort on most pests as they don't do too much damage. If rose slugs are a problem I'll go through and wipe them off with my fingers. If aphids are too many I will spray a few times with soapy water. If I see a rose curlicue (weevil) I will pick it off and kill it. Luckily I don't have thrips and have only occasionally seen rose chafers.

But japanese beetles are a huge problem here. I am vigilant in keeping them to a minimum because if left alone they will destroy every bloom and completely cover your roses in a disgusting pile-up of beetles. Soon as they appear in July I spray them with Bayer Rose & Flower Insect Killer, I have found it is quicker and more effective than hand-picking. I have to go through my roses once or twice a day, at least twice in peak JB season, otherwise the JBs attract more JBs.

I just let the bugs have at them, and wait until they're finished and the bush recovers on its own.
By doing so, it is a subtle reminder to myself to not have too many roses, or too much of ANY one type of plant in the garden. It's also a reminder to me that my rose selections should be weighted toward china roses due to their durability here.
For instance, I have two 'Valentine' roses in one part of my garden that have been attacked by some type of catepillar or some such bug. These two roses are uncharacteristically 100% naked at present ... nothing but a skeleton of canes / branches with not a single leaf. It's not disease, these are healthy plants for me, the leaves had "chomp" marks on them as they disappeared. It's hungry bugs that are causing the defoliation.
While this is taking place, I'm enjoying the daylilies, salvia nemorosa, & dwarf balloon flowers that are companion plants to those two roses in that area of the garden. If those two roses don't recover, then out they go, replaced with china roses or perennials, but I am confident that they'll survive and rebound.
Live and let live.

Randy

P.S. I have never seen a single Japanese beetle here in all the years I've gardened, so I can not relate to that level of devastation. I'm sure it would be tempting to nuke them, as I have occassionally nuked individual fire ant mounds.

Randy

Just spotted one of those green ones and squashed it, not much of a problem yet. Thanks for the tip on aphids, so far I've just hosed them off. The other bugs I haven't dealt with yet.

I'll never use Bayer for Jap beetles again unless I cut the bloom off after. It kills bees, and we lost all our honeybees anyway.

This year I'm planning to prune back my roses, keep buds off, and cover with netting during Jap beetle season. We used my son's spreader yesterday, and it's not a heavy thing like I thought, so I may be able to do that myself and either use Grub X or get some milky spore down next year, maybe both for awhile, too late for NS this year. But they'll still come in from elsewhere.

I may try that Merit for thrips, but I think that kills bees, too, so I'll check on that. Something is ruining buds on some of my roses, some they don't bother. Think it's thrips, white flies, not sure. Whatever they are, it's annoying, especially ruining once-bloomer buds.

It may be my imagination, but the roses that seem to get the least sun seem to be bothered the most by spring pests.

It's going to be a compromise between going completely green and reality with me and my energy level to keep it all up.

There is a bacterial control for caterpillars sold as Di-pel or Thuricide. It is very effective and harmless to everything but caterpillars-- as "green" as it gets. However, it doesn't affect sawfly larvae, which are also green worms.

I also agree about not spraying anything for bugs - long ago I did, and that was a horrible mistake - none of our fruit trees (pomegranites, plums, & figs) had hardly any fruit that year, I am afraid because I killed most of the pollinators. However, we do not have Japanese beetles here, so I don't have that challenge.

I hand pick the curlicue rose beetles when I see them, but frankly they like my Cecile Bruner which goes up over 30 feet, and I don't climb up to get them, and the rose seems to bloom well anyway. We have lots of lady bugs and soldier bugs which eat the aphids. Also, several times a Spring we get HUGE flocks of teeny tiny grey birds - I think they are called bush tits. They are about the size of a hummingbird, but are shaped like sparrows. You notice them because of their very high squeeky calls. Hundreds show up on one giant flock and immediately settle on all of the rose bushes. The first time I saw them I was alarmed until I went to see what they were doing - they were eating aphids! That absolutely settled my decision not every to spray any insecticides. They come back 2 or 3 times each Spring now, when the aphids are at their height. As everyone else says, if you are not lucky enough to get visited by bush tits, and you can't stand it, just blast the aphids off with water from a hose - it is very satisfying.

Jackie

In regard to "green caterpillars", be sure you know which ones they are. I just recently found out that the ones I saw on my Cecile Brunner are the larvae of the Syrphid Fly, an aphid predator. I actually saw one vacuum up an aphid. I had noticed that my CB went from terribly infested with aphids to zero aphids, almost overnight, and then I saw this little green caterpillar doing its thing. Later on there was another infestation, and once again, little green caterpillar to the rescue! From a Rose Forumer I discovered what they were, i.e., Syrphid Fly larvae, and this was confirmed by one of the Rose Gurus here in Sacramento. I might have squashed the little thing when I first spotted it, had I not already noticed the decrease in aphids, and had I not decided to go with Gregg Lowery's advice on letting the predators do it. (I should mention that not all green caterpillars are benign. Apparently, there is one called the Rose Slug. I haven't seen one, so don't know how it compares with the Syrphid Fly larva, which is about 1/2" or 3/4" long.)
Laura

I pulled into my driveway today after work and saw a flock of birds jumping bush to bush eating all those nasty bugs. Nature does have its way of taking care of things. I'm not wild about spraying and don't think I will. Not just to protect the enviroment but to protect me as well. We can't get most of the products that are available in the USA.. Here in Canada we have a lot of legislation banning pesticides and the like. Hand picking will have to do and with the help of my feathered friends I think I'll make out ok. Thanks so much for your time and knowledge.

Mark

I spray. I never used to until last year. The thrips problem here has worsened with the increasingly dry weather. I spray in May when the problem is really bad and I do not spray the rest of the year. This has allowed me to enjoy the once blooming roses or the HP's and bourbons that bloom profusely in May and June, with only scattered flowers in the fall. Without spraying, these roses are damaged beyond recognition.

I try to be very responsible with the spraying and not resort to it every single time I see a problem.