I'm in north San Diego County, and I've had them too. Where in CA are you located? Your damage looks more extensive than mine did. One of the best ways to get rid of them is by trapping them. I learned this over on the roses forum. Take some blue latex gloves or blue plastic Solo cups. Coat them will canola or veg oil, and place them on stakes around the roses. They are attracted to the color and get stuck and die in the oil. I know it doesn't look great, but it does work. Also using spinosaid (sp?) is supposed to help. Just use it in the evening or early morning, so you don't harm the bees. Lisa

I'm in an inland valley, your same zone. I sprayed one bush with spinosad, not sure if it helped. Did you try it with the blue cups? I saw some yellow sticky traps and wondered about them. I wouldn't know what a thrip looks like. Thanks for the suggestion.

I got an estimate of professional spraying. It was $175 and would need to be repeated. No thanks!

I'm concerned too socks, but I feel ready for them with blue gloves on sticks, coated in oil, like Lisa said. I can't seem to find the post that goes over using blue gloves in particular, but here is one that goes over the blue cups. :)

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3816744/omg-blue-cup-thrips-control-actually-works?n=91

Found it! It's a long post... but if you look at the comment by fragrancenutter on 11/17 you will see the blue gloves in action. :)

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3729352/fragrant-roses-that-produce-abundant-perfect-cut-blooms

This info from the UC Integrated Pest Management program is long, but informational too. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7429.html 

Strangely, it doesn't mention blue cups (at least that I saw... I admit I just skimmed it), but it does mention this...

"Investigate the availability of resistant cultivars. For example, western flower thrips more often damages fragrant, light-colored, or white roses. Rose cultivars, with sepals that remain tightly wrapped around the bud until just before blooms open, have fewer thrips problems."

It also mentions pruning in January instead of later times in the year and it recommends not to shear/shape hedges since new growth will attract them. As far as I know, they're not in my area yet in large numbers. I just have a feeling they will be this year though. I do my best not to spray or use insecticides, so I'm learning all I can now to reduce the little buggers!

I know I FEEL better seeing the hordes of thrips stuck on the gloves and cups. Lisa

I'm looking forward to trying this. The condition of my roses last summer was very discouraging. We have been in a state of drought for several years, so the roses were no doubt stressed by inadequate water. I wonder if this weakness encouraged the thrips. I've heard that insects do attack weak or dying plants, especially trees.

Thank you all for the info.

We're talking Chili Thrips, not Western Flower Thrips, right? They were terrible here. I had no rose flowers for three months and the plants looked dreadful. What is this blue thing? They are attracted to blue? I might try horticultural oil. I don't use pesticides because of all the bees.

Are they in the soil now or on the bushes, hence the oil spray now? I assume you mean spraying after pruning is done, kitty.

i wonder what the Huntington is planning. Blue cups?

Has it been decided the bright blue cups work better than the bright lemony yellow ones?

Great info kitty! Thank you! I talked to my county's master gardener program today and this is what they said:

Chili thrips have been confirmed in SoCal, but not north of that yet. They asked me to bring in samples from my garden tho once they get going.

They overwinter under debris and mulch.

They cant recommend the blue cups / blue gloves since there hasn't been enough research yet and they only recommend evidence based controls, but a lot of the master gardeners are going to try it and they want to hear back from me how works too.

Pretty much everything else kitty said. Prune now, weed, keep it clean, spray with oil now if you do that, keep dust to a minimum to encourage predator bugs.

Isn't it best to spray when they are pruned? Mine aren't quite done yet. I have never sprayed with horticultural oil but will figure it out.

Yes, try and spray at least twice after pruning. It's easy to do, fill the sprayer with water, add the oil and shake to mix it up. On tall climbers that I could not spray, I saw damage right away and it grew into a problem fast. If I remember right, these bugs reproduce every 15 days in warm temps. Each tiny bug puts hundreds of eggs into the plant tissue where they can't be hosed off like aphids and take shelter in buds and leaf junctions. The oil will suffocate them. We could use oil all year, but as it gets above 80 F, the oil will burn the leaves. Look around for plants that might host Thrips or show significant damage in summer. You might have to remove them to make fighting them on your roses possible. My bed of cosmos was a favorite target last year. I kept sowing them to monitor how many Thrips were present and where.

Thank you, kitty. Honestly, the only time I've sprayed was with a hose sprayer which was a struggle with the heavy hose, leaking, etc., horrible experience. So I've avoided doing it. I think I can manage a tank sprayer; have done some internet research to get up to speed.

Called the Huntington. They plan to spray with spinosad after the first bloom, and that has some effect. They are using predatory thrips and mites, but that takes time to develop effectiveness. He said that the thrips are at their worst when we hit three digits.

Can I use the tank sprayer for spinosad? If so, can I use the same as for the oil?

Sorry if I seem overly-concerned. The bushes are a major part of our garden, and if they "go," it will be a problem.

I use an inexpensive plastic tank sprayer. You don't have that many roses, so you can use a smaller one and it's not hard to carry around. You can put spinosad in it later. Spray the spinosad late in the day after the bees have gone home. It will dry before they come again the next day. If you jump right on it when you see damage, you can just spray the areas you see and not have to spray everything. Huntington is right, the damage is the worst in heat waves.

Kitty thank you so much for this!

Socks I have never sprayed with a pressurized sprayer either so I guess will be figuring out with you this year.

I already pruned, but I think I should go back through and prune a little more this weekend since now I know not to prune again until next January.

Kitty you clean up the rose bushes and dead head throughout the year still right? Just no heavy handed pruning except in January? Thanks again for helping us along!

I am new to it the same as everyone else here. I have been learning from some helpful rose growers in Florida and Texas who say that some years you get more damage and some years will be light. Keeping populations from building up is essential. Heavy pruning in the heat is asking for a Thrips battle. I saw that at nearby Fullerton Arboretum. The plant cannot keep up even if you cut every thrip damaged stem and flower off. The new growth is thin and weak. The canes grow stretched thin in an effort to outgrow the thrips rasping away at the tender tissue. At the end of the year, only thin canes remain and these will have few flowers. A few years like that and the rose fades away to nothing

The antique roses at Fullerton were left alone after spring bloom and had little damage on the mature growth. So even though heavy damage was going on nearby, the roses that weren't making an abundance of soft growth seemed to get a break. There was some damage here and there which I would have sprayed. I did tell them about chilli thrips this time last year but how they responded to them seems to be by trying to prune off damaged canes and buds. I don't know for sure, that was just my guess by looking.

Thank you for sharing your experience, Kitty. I considered yanking the worst bushes but instead pruned what was left of them down very low. It's an experiment. Maybe with all our rain they will recover, but I doubt it. I don't feel like replacing them, it's so discouraging.

Can you SEE where the thrips enter the cane? I thought they were in the bud, but maybe not.

The Huntington said they came from Florida on incoming plant material.

We had chili thrips for the first time last summer in the garden I hlep tend. We sprayed alternately with Spinosad and Imidacloprid, as dusk when no bees were present. That seemed to keep them under control It's also important to bag and dispose of damaged plant material. When we rake up the mulch to replace it this winter, we will probably spray the ground with spinosad. If you live in Orange County, we are having a hand-on rose pruning class on Saturday, Jan. 28th.

Rose Pruning Workshop