Other photo... still not the best but I know you guys are REALLY good on this forum.... :)

Hi Annalyssa: Below is a thread in the Organic Roses Forum, "ID little green worms desiccating rose foliage, please". Hopefully that helps.

Here is a link that might be useful: ID green worms desiccating rose foliage

I'm afraid I've also noticed the white substance on the stems of Mlle. de Sombreuil, although the rose is otherwise very healthy. I just hosed it off but I hope it won't make a comeback. I haven't seen any bugs to speak of.

Ingrid

So -- You know the green worms are Rose Slugs, and you can pick them off, or squish 'em. (If you squish 'em, they sort of "pop.")

You don't say where you are located, which handicaps us in replying, but . . .

I do not know what the white stuff is, but -- look around OTHER plants in your garden. Begonias, Plumerias, Brugmansias, citrus trees, anything with rather juicy, flat leaves, and see if you see powdery white "tracks" as photo below.

If you DO, that would be whitefly. And while they aren't supposed to colonize roses, I have seen it happen once.

If you DO find this, blast it with a powerful spray of water. (And I do mean BLAST!) You can get rid of it. (Pesticides will only make things worse.)

If you don't find this, I would go ahead and blast anyhow. I bet it will do the trick.

Jeri

More massive cottony accumulations often have spittle bugs in the mass. (Small brown leaf hoppers.)

Another thing to watch for is wooly hackberry aphids, which (in Tennessee) are a fall pestilence, but not that much of a problem for roses as long as hackberry trees are around.

I think the white stuff on the stem is called scale--some kind of a critter that can be easily wiped off. Back in my bad ol' smoking days, I would carefully position the end of the cigarette right next to the "body" of the white stuff--boy, would it take off fast! Not that I recommend taking up smoking as a method of dealing with them. LOL

Kate

Google Mealy bugs, that looks a lot like the white bugs too

The first photo of the rose stem with the white stuff among the prickles almost looks like mealy bug. BUT, if you're seeing little white bugs "hopping", that's more likely white fly. Not Giant White Fly, but white fly. Here they ADORE hollyhocks and other large leafed perennials. They sometimes hit the roses, but not frequently. The white spirals on the foliage Jeri showed are the beginnings of their colonization. From that, a long white "beard" grows for them to hide and breed in. Hibiscus is a favorite food for them. Fortunately my hill is too hot and arid for them so I don't experience them in my garden, but the hollyhocks and other plants get them up in Santa Clarita where it is much hotter and more arid, but the gardens are frequently watered by sprinklers. Mine isn't.

Spittle bugs will literally look as if someone has spat all over the place. Bubbly "spit" with a sucking insect inside them.

For small outbreaks, washing them off vigorously with hose water and your fingers will cleanse their evidence from the plant and drown SOME of them, but they will return as long as conditions favor them. I see spittle bug on rosemary and lavender at clients' houses all the time and I blast them off with the hose. I don't experience them at home.

I do get mealy bug on the giant iceplant out front by the curb and I blast that off with the hose, too. There are insecticides which can knock them down. The last two I tried nearly knocked ME down, too.

As Jeri suggested, look around your garden for the same bugs. Most of the time, they are not isolated invaders, but spread from somewhere else to where you notice them. Sometimes, they hitch-hike in on YOU, other plants or animal visitors. Many times, you can wash them away if they are just getting started. But, if your conditions favor them, they will continue returning until either conditions change or you take steps against them. Pesticides will knock them down, usually completely if done properly, but they will also knock down predators. If complete annihilation of the pest is your focus, pesticides are the only way to go. Even the best predators will never completely eliminate their food source. Man is the only predator which totally wipes out its source of food. Kim

Hi all!

Sorry! I'm located in Tuscany, Italy.

Strawberryhill, thanks for the link! Very helpful. I think the larvae are (were) rose slugs for sure. They're nasty little things, they look so harmless and all but you close your eyes for one minute and the next thing you know there isn't a leaf left!

The white critters seem like white fly from the photos I've seen... it's definitely not mealy bugs - they don't have all those legs nor the football shape.
I noticed our fig tree also has them - on the stems there as well, nothing on the leaves.

I'm going to try hosing them all down tomorrow morning and see if I manage to get rid of the major "nests".
They're kind of scary and ghost-ey...

Thanks for the help everyone :)

Annalyssa

A few weeks back, some of mine had that same white stuff on some stems -- it looked like wet down feathers. I didn't know what it was, but it came off with a blast from the hose, and I haven't seen it since.

:-)

~Christopher

Plain old water remains some of the best fertilizer, pesticide and fungicide we have. Kim

You said you were in Italy at nearly the exact time I figured you must be in the Southeast, lol. We call those woolly aphids (of some sort, lol), and they will show up on lots of plants some years. Some years we don't see them at all. The actual bug looks fluffy if you look closely.

My figs have them this year, too :) And the roses... and the orchard in general. I'm glad they spread out because there are just little colonies that don't do damage that I can see.

I believe this is the kind of woolly aphid we have a carnivorous butterfly for! NC is very cool. We have carnivorous plants here and even carnivorous butterflies! :D

Here is a link that might be useful: The aphids & meat-eating butterfly that eats and wears their bodies :D

This post was edited by meredith_e on Tue, Jul 23, 13 at 1:56

Kim, I like the simplicity in that statement....

Meredith, my dad lived in NC for a while and it WAS very cool! So beautiful! Although carnivorous butterflies are a terrifying thought.

I'm really not sure what those white bugs are - they look like white fly but more powdery and don't make the webbing on the underside of leaves.
I don't know about them being wooly afids because they don't have the shape or the wooliness...

Christopher, it's reassuring to hear you got rid of them just by spraying them down with water.

People around here are terrified of spraying the leaves of plants because of mildew, but I think if I "wash" them in the mornings, it might help with these infestations?
If the leaves have time to dry, it will be ok right? I shouldn't be too scared of mildew?
It's true that the nights are quite cool and the days super hot at this time of year....

Anna-Lyssa

At least in this and my former climates, overhead watering has resulted in cleaner foliage, fewer disease and insect issues and much more vigorous, well foliated plants. I'm sure there are situations and conditions it wouldn't be appropriate for, but it definitely works very well here.

If your area gets good rains so it helps clean out the plants, knocking out debris, spent flower petals and dead foliage, it may not have as beneficial an effect. Mine doesn't. If I don't blow out climbers on walls and fences, they collect such a high level of debris and dust, issues begin developing. The same holds true with the bushes. Like us, plants can exist for a rather long time without "food", but neither of us can last very long without water. Helping to clean out the dirt and debris with it mimics Nature, very easily and efficiently hydrating the plant. Besides, Nature seems to have forgotten she's supposed to do that here. Kim

Yes, a local horticulturalist recommended giving all foliage a quick hard spray with the hose once a week in the dry season. Without using much water, I've noticed improvement in the look and health of the foliage. And it's fun.

Annalyssa, it is not whitefly or scale because these have sedentary nymphs/larvae, not ones that hop. It is something like a leafhopper or froghopper (there are many species of each). The fluffy white material is there to protect the nymph from predators as it sucks juices from the stem. In my experience, insects of these types have never caused any noticeable damage to roses. While yours may be different, I wouldn't worry until you see indications that they are doing real damage. I would just squirt off the white stuff and not let them get comfortable.

We're humid here and I do well hosing off the rose foliage in the summer. I don't do it on overcast days or too early in the morning, but if the day is sunny and hot it dries well here. I have a windy garden, so that might matter in humid areas (the air circulation available).

If the foliage dries out quickly enough, I think it's better to wash the foliage. It does get rid of a lot of bugs.

Thanks all!
It's true - when we water garden plants it's because we need to "fake" rain, and rain also waters the leaves.... so when we only ever water at the base I guess we're only doing half the job Nature does on her own...
Makes sense.
Hosed down all of my plants this morning and made sure all the potted ones were in spots with good air circulation.
I'm convinced they're super happy about their morning shower.

Plus all the white stuff disappeared without even trying to stay on. Happy me! And no, they don't seem to have done any damage.

Annalyssa

Are the caterpillar/worms spotted, reaching maximum about 1/2"-3/4" in length? Do they reduce leaves to skeletons, eating all the soft tissue and leaving the veins? If such is the case, I know what you have, though I can never remember their name in Italian and don't know it in English. I wish there had been some photos on Strawberry's link (didn't read it all).
I doubt your fluffy bugs are likely to turn out a big problem: I don't recall seeing them on my roses often if at all, and mine do have their share of pests.
It's hot and very dry here. Everything will survive, the babies wth some watering. How are you all doing down in Tuscany?
Melissa

Hi Melissa!! :)

Those caterpillars are at it again, this time on my new Ispahan! Argh! Yep, and what you describe is about right... I think they're argidi. I also found imbedded 'nests' (one full of orderly ominious little glistening eggs!) like the photo in the link.

And yeah, the white bugs seem to be just hanging out. I haven't noticed any damage...

Ok, it got SO HOT here too. I'm happy because my two Golden Celebrations have taken off and don't need to be watered any more (!!!) and even in this heat they always look fresh and clean and perfect! And the blooms are lovely and last forever. It's like a miracle plant. We're getting along. Everything else I planted looks dreadful though! I don't know if it's a combination of bugs, a wicked hailstorm last week-end and that scorching midsummer heat....
Also probably the soil that hasn't been tested or properly ammended. I need to do that. My boyfriend (such a darling and so supportive otherwise) thinks getting the soil tested is 'exaggerating'....

Anna-Lyssa

Here is a link that might be useful: Parassiti delle rose

Anna-Lyssa,
The site looks interesting; thanks! Yes, argidi are what I was talking about. The adult bugs I see, though, aren't like the one in the photo: they're half orange and half black, and bear no particular resemblance to wasps. Keep an eye out, and you will eventually find one stuck to a cane where it has deposited its eggs. I think at that point they've already laid their eggs and killing them is useless, but I rip them out and smash them anyway. I also stomp the larvae when I see the odious little monsters on my roses.
Did you cut off the cane and open it to find the eggs? The picture shows a mature scar: the eggs are inside the cane. Argidi always pick young canes to lay their eggs in, usually when they're just getting ready to bloom, which is really irritating, though the cane will survive the attack, with some damage. The scar starts out as a thin longitudinal line, then develops into the scar shown on the photo.
I hear it's going to get hotter. Our garden is really dry. I wish we had more trees for shade and coolness.
Melissa

By interesting coincidence I found two webby white masses that look much like your photo today. I do not remember having seen anything exactly like it in my garden before now. One was on a rose and one on an apple tree. Both were very localized, involving just a small area, but the leaves on the rose covered by the webbing were desiccated. I removed both, blasting the rose with water then picking off the dried leaves, then removing the webbing from the apple with a stick. I'll check back later, but as for now, I think they will both be okay. I do hope so at any rate.

I thought it looked a lot like pictures I've seen of giant whitefly. I had hoped to never actually encounter it in real life.

Rosefolly

Melissa, rosefolly, hi!

I got such a good look at those white bugs yesterday but was too mesmorized/horrified to think to take photos. They're getting bigger. The spots with the white stuff that I hosed down seem clean now, but they showed up again in new spots and the bugs are "growing into themselves" and really resent being "hunted" by my gloved hands, they keep hiding and hopping away. And yes, rosefolly, they do resemble the White fly photos I've seen... except that since my "nests" don't have the characteristic webbing on the underside of leaves, just the clumps on the stems, I'm hoping it's something else, something harmless.

Melissa, the caterpillar "nest" I found with what appeared to be eggs looked like this photo. The others I've found were all dried up scars but one had eggs I'm pretty sure. I have to say I'm really not brave about bugs. I know it's something I have to get over, but I freak out, I acutally get an adrenaline rush (of fear!) when I see things like bug nests with eggs in them and stop breathing normally. I say "omg" under my breath or shriek "OMG", cut the stem off and throw it into the destruction pile as fast as I can.
I'm working on that.

The heat! The heat is unbearable. I'm actually grateful my roses are still mostly in pots so that I can move them to the North side of the house!

A question about spraying pesticides in the heat (Melissa I know you don't spray) - I want to do a test and just spray one plant to see the difference (in chemical damage due to spraying but also insect damage due to not spraying). When would it be better during the day to carry out this experiment? I know if I do it at the wrong time in this heat I'll just burn the plant.

Thanks!
Annalyssa

The nest is probably more sawfly larvae (rose slugs) in the making. Either that or parasitic space aliens that will crawl into people's orifices while they sleep.

The best time to spray in warm weather is in the morning, and after irrigating if that is needed. The best insecticide for sawfly larvae is spinosad (universal generic name for a chemical sold under various brand names). This name should appear in the fine print where ingredients are listed.

Thanks michaelg for the spraying tip and for the REASSURING (hem) take on the nests I've been sighting. I'll be sure to remember what you said as I sleep by the open window just above the branches of these invaded roses...

:)

Anna-Lyssa,
I don't know what it takes to overcome a bug phobia, but if you can conquer yours, at least to some extent, you'll have a much happier garden life. Wasps are your friends! Bees are fascinating! Even hornets are not aggressive if you leave them alone, though you don't want them building nests anywhere close to where you spend your hours. Good luck! The wasps are particularly important as they eat pests. I move slowly and very rarely get stung (a couple of times in the last decade?), and I enjoy all the critters. Rose-devouring beetles I could do without, but then ladybugs are adorable! Spraying is one way of dealing with pests, but if you don't spray you do get a mini-ecosystem, as you called it (I loved that description), and a lot of enjoyment, if you can get past your horrified reaction to bugs. Think of the fine population of lizards, insectivorous birds, and possibly hedgehogs, toads, and frogs you can get if you refrain from spraying. Though I should add that some people spray, doing it correctly, and possibly manage still to enjoy these benefits.
I honestly don't know what your eggs are: they could be argidi eggs for all I know, I've never spotted anything like that.
It's too hot for me to want to do much of anything here. We don't have air conditioning. Our living room is half underground and never gets actually hot, but our bedroom on the first floor is now body temperature, and fans are no longer effective. Last night I resorted to a trick I learned last summer: I dampened a bath towel and slept under it, enjoying the cooling effect of the fanned air passing over the moisture. It kept the gnats off too, which have started to bite. The two week forecast is for more of the same.
Melissa

Oh Melissa, I know! I really need to just take baby steps towards overcoming my bug phobia because I know you're right! I don't know if you caught in my initial post where I nonchalantly stated that I was "picking them off by hand" like that's totally nothing... well that was a MILESTONE event. I had to "get in the zone" kind of like you do when you're about to step into an Ikea on a Saturday... you know what I mean? But I DID it!! I overcame! I didn't squish them (as was suggested here, because let's be realistic) but I did get close enough to pick them off and put them in a plastic bag! And I think as I just keep learning and doing, it'll get better.
Plus reading this forum helps... it's like free therapy...

Where exactly are you in the north? I hope for your sake it's a bit cooler there, although in this heat even "cooler" is still not enough. We're at the sea right now hiding but even here it's unbearable...
Your description of sleeping with a damp towel reminds me of my mother! She used to sleep in a damp nightgown when it got too hot... awwww....

thanks for "being there" through my bug therapy phase.

Annalyssa

Annalyssa,
We (I, husband, teenage daughter) live in the province of Piacenza in the northern foothills of the Apennines, in the country on an ex-farm. Our property is at 450 meters above sea level, so that we're quite a bit cooler than down in the Po Plain, but our land faces south and we don't have nearly enough trees, and summer is HOT. Fortunately one of the first things we did when we moved here was build a wisteria pergola across the front of the house, which helps a lot. We also have a life project of planting trees, but it's a slow business. We don't have a well and have to depend on the public water supply, and I dry garden as much as possible.
Actually summer is pretty pleasant. I can't believe I'm saying that, but it has its enjoyable aspects.
Melissa

Hi Melissa!

Your home sounds beautiful!! Wisteria is the most romantic plant! It must be divine.
I've never been to Piacenza but I always love the train ride through your part of the country. It makes me giddy with happiness.
Speaking of water, coming from Canada (where water supply is free and abundant and you don't even think about it), it was a shock realizing how expensive and limited water is here! Fortunately we installed a monstrous cistern in the back garden underground so we've been watering with that.
But last week the cistern ran out of water (!) because of a broken pipe that had to be fixed, and WOW it is stressful gardening with public water!
The cistern was an investment (and we had to dig up the entire back yard which now has some limits on it because of the access etc.) but definitely worth it. Every time it rains, you get the double satisfaction of feeling the garden cheer up but also knowing the precious stuff is getting collected for later.

Are there any posts with photos of your garden? It sounds charming.... I'd love to see it!

Annalyssa

Noticed the powdery white bugs on a minirose in a planter here yesterday. We call them leafhoppers but don't recall which one as there are many types. The larger mobile ones hop quickly & can fly short distances at certain stages.They tend their brood in the white stuff. Agree with simply wiping them off with fingers, gloved or not (which catches the hoppers off guard), followed by the cold water hose to remove the remainder of white stuff (which is slightly sticky). Find a preliminary treatment with the hose watering wand set to "mist" weighs down the hoppers so they don't jump away. Follow that up with a medium-strong spray, not so strong that you beat the leaves up. The cold water stuns as well as removes them.They seem to only show up in the heat here. Never needed to do more than repeat this daily for a few days till they disappear entirely. Very effective & harmless to all but the target.

Some of the scariest-looking bugs are actually the most beneficial & eat the harmful ones for supper.Tend to treat them all as friends & neighbors unless proven otherwise - definitely a "mini-ecosystem" going on here achieving balance on its own. The hornworm spied on the tomato yesterday will become a hummingbird moth & we'll still have tomatoes to feed us, too. The caterpillars that munch the passionflower leaves turn into butterflies floating amongst the flowers while the aphids feed the ladybugs. Without the rich web of life the plants would never be a garden & we wouldn't even enjoy the plants themselves without the pollinators. All have their place in the dance.

When I sit on the porch steps as day turns to twilight, the porch frog wakes to sit beside me & the enormous praying mantis we've known since she was tiny climbs down the passionflower vine for a lower perch to join us. We watch as the daytimers settle down & the nightlife starts to play. Silly as it may seem, we enjoy each other's company. I consider them "people", but then I do that with everyone. So much richer for knowing them.

Curious to find out what those eggs become - please let us know. And remember, the garden is also for savoring.

This post was edited by vasue on Thu, Aug 1, 13 at 7:58