Are you washing the foliage with a water wand?

Well now I am three days in a row to get rid of them. Do you have to wash the foliage regularly to avoid getting them? I thought most people did drip irrigation.

People spray vigorously under the leaves to wash them off.

As far as I know, and I am a CR of many years experience, there is no way to prevent spider mites. There are no pre-emergence sprays. Having a wet spring is also no guarantee of prevention. When the weather dries out, they appear or not as the luck of the draw and Mother Nature allows. When I know they are present, I spray the undersides of the leaves with Avid a couple of times a few days apart. This controls them. I may not see another all the rest of the growing season. In fact, knock wood, I have not had to treat for spider mites for two years now.

Has anyone had success in deterring spider mites with Wilt Pruf? My husband suggested we spray the roses in the new front rose garden with WP to help combat the wind we've had this spring. While I was reading about that I found a thread saying Wilt Pruf might help keep spider mites off your plants.

Kate

I try to remove some of the bottom leaves and open up the middle of the bush. This allows me to spray better underneath the leaves with water or a miticide.

Regularly washing the underside of the leaves with a strong spray from a water wand should be the best preventative and won't destroy natural preditors. Spraying with a toxic insecticide will destroy their natural predators and leave you open to a severe infestation. Insecticides will not control them anyway. For that you need a miticide such as Avid, but a water wand works as well and is considerably less expensive. Regular water wand use also lets you look at each bush and spot problems early on.
I've not sprayed an insecticide for over 5 years and have acheived a good balance. Spider mites have not been a problem for a couple of years.

So do you wash the underside once a week or something like that?

I don't need to because, as I said,"Spider mites have not been a problem for a couple of years."
Were I to use a water wand to keep them at bay, I'd do so at least once a week but every 3 days if they were present. If you use a fungicide regularly, the day you spray it could be one of your water wand days, but instead of the water wand, use the spray wand and spray under the leaves. If you have enough pressure, it will knock off any present.

I use drip irrigation, but I still go around and hose my roses down with water at least once per week. I don't have a fanatical set schedule, just when it fits in with my mood. It gets rid of aphids as well as spider mites.

I haven't sprayed insecticides in two years. At first things were so out of balance that I had an awful time. I stuck to my guns though, and I no longer have any significant pest issues. I don't even have many thrips this year.

I'm pretty annoyed with a rabbit that ate the bark off the trunk of one of my camellia bushes though.

Sandy

"Darn pesky wabbits!"

I can't attribute spraying Wilt Pruf to not having spider mites..however, we've never had them in the garden here using it in our fungicide spray. We've never sprayed insecticides in all the years we've gardened here.

I spray my fungicide bi-weekly and it doesn't keep the spider mites away.

Redsox, maybe I wasn't clear..I was responding to Kate's post about using Wilt Pruf. We do add WP to our fungicide spray every two weeks. The fungicides alone would have no effect on spider mites, I'd think.

What bug eats mites?

The only effect spraying a fungicide would have on spider mites would be by washing them off the underside of leaves by the pressure of the spray. It's the act of spraying, not the fungicide. Using plain water in the sprayer would have the same effect. When knocked off the underside of leaves, the mites cannot get back up to them. This interupts their reproductive cycle. That's the whole idea of washing the underside of leaves.
A high pressure blast from an empty Atomist sprayer or blower would also work but could blow them onto other plants.

Back in Texas and here, spider mites seem to appear with the first series of hot, dry days. As soon as this weather is forecast I get out my water wand and wash the undersides of the leaves for 3 days. Then each time that weather pattern occurs I repeat the spraying. Since these critters multiply so rapidly I've never waited for them to appear. I watch the weather and then go fot it. Thanks to this, I've never actually seen spider mites in my garden. In other people's garden, yessss.

I just read an article from the internet about water wands and their effectiveness. It's from Texas A&M University Argi Ext Serv. I got it on this website http://www.collincountyrosesociety.org

Here is a link that might be useful: Collin (Texas) County Rose Society