That's a sad picture, mccrean1. I never really knew what thrips did but I think I must've been confusing them with leaf miners - in my minds eye I always thought of those trails under the leaves when someone mentioned thrips.

Well, it should stop raining so much sometime in the near future (! - not next week though) and things will be better.

Rose

I have that same variety in my garden. Brown ball plant. I have a bumper crop of those this year.

I think thrips are the cause of some of my daylilies blooming strangely this year.

What are you spraying with?

you need to use a systemic pesticide instead of a spray-on because thrips are inside the buds doing their damage :(

Are you sure this is thrips? With thrips I usually get a chewed up flower, or only one half of it opens and the petals all fall off and look deformed.

When I get what you show is what I have called 'balling'. Some varieties of roses do this if it rains when the blossom is starting to open. My Cymballine is typical of this.

UtahJulia, just wanted to say thanks for posting that here. As far as I know, I've never had thrips until this year and I was spraying the outside of my daylily buds. I bought some systematic yesterday so hopefully this will take care of my problem.

My rose 'Belinda's Dream' does the same as yours Mcrean. Not all of the buds, but a few...So how do we know if this is "balling" or thrips on the roses?

When I first saw the photos, I also thought "balling" and not thrips. I first saw this with Glamis Castle, I put photos of it on the Rose Forum a long time ago, and they all said "ball". So I gave it to a nice man who found it a lovely home, and he said it doesn't ball where he lives!
Now I have another rose sent in a trade that is doing the same thing. it's getting YANKED!

GGG

Mccrean, post your picture on the roses forum -- somebody there will know exactly what it is. There seem to be hundreds of people that post there.

I would have thought that New Dawn was quite tough plant and would have no problem down here. But with all the rain we've had, maybe it has called a "balling" problem.

Rose