I am wondering if you can buy the insects that eat rose slug?

Do you exhibit at rose or flower shows? Other than looking bad is there any special reason why you don't like the holes in the leaves? Or do you have a perfect leaf phobia?
I get them every spring also but they soon grow back and the slugs go away after the temps warm up.
If you've sprayed insecticides in the past and decide to stop, you can expect the first year not using them to be a little worse with insect damage. It takes a while for the predatory insects to create a balance.
Remember, the predatory insects and other insect eaters do not show up until they have something to eat. This means you'll always have the bad bugs and their damage first. Each year the predatory insects will hatch out and arrive a little earlier.
Make sure you have lots of cover for the birds to nest in. They eat a lot of insects. I have large evergreens around my home with three large fir trees in a grove on the north property line. Right now they are filled with nesting birds who raise hell as I go past on my lawn mower. Many are already feeding babies and keeping my insect problems at a minimum.

Redsox, I have them every year as well and the most I've done is go around looking at the undersides of leaves and squishing them. Some years have been worse than ever where I felt compelled to spend some time going after them and squishing. It is time consuming, I know. But last year I had hardly any rose slugs at all. I think the beneficials finally caught up with them, I do have a lot of wasps and hover flies.

Redsox, I also squished them. That is what Baldo Villegas does on his site.

Sammy

I am so happy that so many here are not turning to chemicals for every little problem with their roses. It didn't used to be that way. On the pest scale of 1-10, rose slugs are a 1.

I did try something last year once because of my spider mites. While someone at a nursery recommended it to me, I know regular insecticides don't work on spider mites anyway because they are not insects, they are mites. This is what I have been told by orchid growers, we get mites there too.

Since the Bayer products (what I used) only last up to 4 weeks, I can't imagine that is having an impact but who knows. I understand that could kill off a new generation.

I don't need perfect leaves by any means and I don't exhibit but I know you need foliage in order to get blooms. Reine Victoria, for example, has few leaves remaining that are not very damaged.

Hello,
I don't know if this will help...
found this via Google
http://www.weekendgardener.net/how-to/snails-slugs.htm
Seems a lot of people have success with ammonia.
Lioness

Around here, spider mite problems are very much a symptom of insecticide overuse. I don't think you've been dry enough that it is going to be much different.

What eats my rose slugs are paper wasps.

Redsox, my dd and I went out and collected some rose slugs from Louis IV in a pot and put them in a paper bowl and then sprayed them with just soap and water. They did die from the soap and water. Squishing works too. I have to coat the bottoms of the leaves and stems really well to get them.

As Mad Gallica says, the main predators are wasps. I just wipe off the slugs when I see damage, but the wasps take care of most of them.

Plain water doesn't work. Soap ought to work on rose slugs and aphids. Get Safer's soap so you know you have an appropriate concentration. Dish soaps contain varying amounts of water. Also Safer's is better for the plants.

I wouldn't use Merit because it causes spider mite problems. Spinosad would be the best synthetic (Ferti-Lome Borer, Bagworm spray).

Well I can tell you what works but would discourage you from using it. I read you post right after looking at my roses swiss cheese like looking leaves. I was eager to see the replies. And like an hour later I realized that I see the damage only on my pot getto, or on newly planted ex-getto roses. Everything else I HAD to treat with Bayer Complete Insect Control drench as a midge prevention a couple of weeks ago. And everything else is clean. But midge is different. You either pull out really heavy guns, or don't have blooms at all. I think I may still see the midge though:(. For slugs I'm going to use may be a little bit of soap, because like you pointed out young roses need some leaves. It is only needs to stop raining! Maria

We have had drought the past 2 summers so I think that might be the reason for the spider mites. This has been a rainy Spring but by June we don't see any rain whatsoever.

The problem did seem to originate in the new plants and ghetto as gardenmanya said. I do prefer the Safer Soap, Michael. This year I happened to go to HD and they didn't carry it but had a similar product by Ortho. I much prefer the Safer's Brand for some reason.

Typically I don't have enough time to squish all of the worms from all of the roses. Maybe next year I'll try to squish some earlier.

Gardenmanya, I'm curious.. How much would it cost to use Bayer Complete Insect Control drench on 280 roses? A bag of lawn grub control granules costs about $10. Just wondering. Henry

Spinosad if you must.

What I do, besides squishing, is give the roses a big hit of fertilizer, so they grow a bunch of new leaves that hides the damaged ones.

If you are killing insects with a chemical, there are no good guys to kill the mites. There are no good guys period. Are your worms alive? It might be that the worms are consuming the chemicals, and then the birds are eating the worms or feeding them to their young.

Many people choose to get rid of all bugs, but if that is your choice, then the miticides will be for you. Have you ever considered buying lady bugs or other good guys?

SAmmy

I had the mites first and THEN used the insecticide, not the other way around. It was several weeks in between. So the mites didn't come as a result of beneficials being absent.

Henry, to be serious it is hard to say. My garden is brand new. Last year when the midge came I had probably about 30 roses in the ground.I'm close to 80 this spring:). The pot ghetto was not affected, being in the different corner of the yard. I bought 2 bottles, and just opened the second one for this spring application. The first bottle was also used by DH to kill some ground wasps, yellow jackets, or whatever they called. They would bite him when he was moving the lawn:).And it actually did not help a lot. I honestly think that the price for granular and end-hose application will come out close. I will try granular too, later in season, per your advice. The end-hose drench cycle was recommended by forum members in PA area, after I placed desperate message. It worked, roses started to bloom again. But I'm not sure I got all the midge last year, it was pretty late in the season. I was happily relieved this spring when I saw a decent population of earthworms . I was afraid I killed them all.Ones again I barely use any chemicals in my garden, except for extreme emergencies. And I learned the hard way to classify the midge as an extreme emergency. Maria.

Gardenmanya,

There is no such product as Bayer Complete Insect Control in the Bayer website. There is also no discussion of midge or listing of midge on any of their granular products that I could find. They say that spraying one of their products will kill the midge fly. Of course but that is a waste of time. You cannot control midge by spraying so it seems to me like a fraud if they are selling it for that. Where did you get the idea to drench for midge? I see nothing about it on the Bayer website and I question whether it could work. I would suggest that granules would have a longer lasting effect. A drench would kill everything when you put it down but how about a week later. I mention this because there is a simple easy way to control midge that I've known for 15 years but which seems to have been forgotten by most here currently growing roses. It seems that the fascination with all things Bayer has people doing some pretty strange things.

Henry

I inspect my roses often and squish those I see. Now that is see the aphids are coming I do that to them too.

I do not have a perfect leaf phobia as Karl phrases it - Roses are ornamental plants in my garden. Not much ornamental about pest ridden and eaten roseplants. Now if I had a few acres and collected roses - I would not worry so much. But in smaller gardens with plenty of roses we see close up it is not demanding too much that the roses look prestine or their best. I very much dislike the sound of bugs chewing louder than the guests I have over for Afternoon Tea.

On my daily inspection rounds I carry a little pressure sprayer with pyrethrum tea and only aim at areas on the rose, with many aphids/Slugs. I have written about the natural pyrethrum tea and how to make it. It smells wonderful, is totally organic, breaks down fast in sunlight, and kills insects it comes into contact with (including beneficials - thus the targeted spraying).

We do not have rose midge here, but caneborers can be a little annoying - so I have no need to use systemic insectides. I would not hesitate to spray as needed if I had more troublesome pests though, no matter what the PC correct think.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pyretrhum - Organic insecticide

Henry , we started this discussion on midge thread, may be we need to move back there? Don't discard other people experience, I appreciated yours. There are always different ways to approach the problem. That is why we have this forum. The exact product name is Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer.It is liquid, not granular. You do end hose drench every 5-7 days for a couple of times to break the midge life cycle. And, yes, the bottle is on my computer desk right now. I pulled it out to make sure I give you a correct product name- and it is officially designated for rose midge.I'm not fascinated with Bayer products at all. But I have a small yard where plants are very visible, and a big job. I wish there was an easy way to control midge!
Karl. I appreciate your advice, rounds with a sprayer sound good! Maria

Gardenmanya, All I'm trying to do is figure out what you are talking about. You said it was Bayer Complete Insect Control so I tried to find out about it and didn't exist. Now you finally get the name right so looked at it. It is intended to be used as a spray and I simply wondered where you got the idea to use this high powered stuff as a drench. Is this something people do commonly nowadays? If so I take back everything I said about rose growers not wontonly polluting the environment like they used to. It is something I would never do and even if I wanted to I couldn't do it with 280 roses. The time required and the cost would make this prohibitive. That was my original point. I simply wondered what you were doing and if it was an alternative but it is not for me. I also noticed that the stuff is systemic which maybe why it works. I assume all that drenching gets a lot of the stuff into the rose so maybe it kills the midge grubs when they nibble the tips. But of course that means that it will also kill bees. Just a thought. Henry

Anyone driving past a rose garden at 20 mph will not see any insect damage that may be there.

But don't you need foliage to get more flowers?

They sure do! I have to apologize that your question somehow get drown in midge discussion! It is just that you can control slugs and aphids with least toxic way than Bayer products. I honestly think that granular or liquid are equally bad, and they all have systemic effect to one level or another. And organics too. Nothing which can kill is harmless.
Slugs will go away soon, so far soap spray probably will be your best solution.But this is your garden, anyway. And I think that if you have 10-15 roses overall harm is minimal. More then 100- you will poison to much stuff! And a lot of people here with large gardens are trying to go no spray / no pesticides partually for this reason.

Redsox, people may have different experiences with rose slugs. I have them every year, but they never do serious damage. If you are losing say 25% of the foliage, and you see significant damage ongoing through the season, then it makes sense to spray. With soap or spinosad, you have to get complete coverage of the underside of the leaves. Probably you only need to spray certain varieties that are attractive to the pest.

Also, tolerate wasp nests under the eaves and deck.

10-15 roses, well I never! :-) How could one be a member of this forum and keep it down to 10-15 roses? Impossible! Now I will have to go count.

Michael, we do have wasp nests around somewhere. In fact, we have a problem with them coming into the house frequently.

So they are trying to hold up their end. We don't tolerate them around the back door or the deck. Anywhere on the second floor, or under the eaves is ok. They very rarely get in the house because we don't let them live by the doors.

Now I do expect to find out one of these days what happens to a cat if he is stung by a paper wasp. Hopefully nothing too terrible.

What does a roseslug look like? Does it resemble a snail without the shell?

Rose slugs are pale green worms 1/8 to 1/2" long. They are sawfly larvae and not related to snails.

"But don't you need foliage to get more flowers?"

Yes, but the damage done by the rose slugs is not so much as to greatly interfere with flower production. If you've done everything else right, damaged leaves will soon be replaced. You have to learn not to be so intimidated by every little bug that appears on your roses.
Sometimes it's better to stand back and look at the complete picture and not at each individual thing in it.

Ramblimrosez. Here is picture of Sawfly larvae/Roseslugs:

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If you have an aquarium, the soft-bodied rose slugs make yummy treats for your aquatic pets.

All of these comments must be considered with the understanding that the level of infestation varies from garden to garden. Here, the wasps are quick to jump in before the problem is severe. Lady bugs too. I just tolerate slugs and aphids.

Then the midge emerge and completely destroy my buds.

Thanks Micheal and thanks for the picture cupshaped roses.
I haven't seen any of these guys in my garden yet, but I am just starting to see aphids, and I am really biting my nails in anticipation for the thrips, I hate them!