Yes, ate a majority of it last year but it bounced back... just tried a dish soap and water concoction.. Says to spray it on then rinse after 1 hour... will try the good stuff if that doesn't work... I don't shy away from the chemicals... i think the negative effect are overstated... i live in a country that won't even allow you to kill ticks so sick of the enviro-nazis

If you want to kill aphids, safers insect soap would do. I don't think you can use chemicals in Canada. I use bayers insects spray for rose midge, but you don't need anything that strong for aphids.

We can, but they are watered down.. Round Up is only 2% for instance.. but people cross border and get the chems in Buffalo

and they sell safer's here.. saw it on Home Depot Canada website

Safer soap at Lowe's is $5.58, Home Depot costs more (about $9.98). If you make a shopping trip to Buffalo check out Lowes, it might be cheaper than Canada. Have you visited Palatine Roses? If you can make it to Buffalo, you must be near Palatine.

I'm north of toronto.. Buffalo is a 2 hour drive... Niagara Falls, NY is a bit closer... DOn't know what Palatine is or where it is

I tried Dawn dish soap (2 TBL spoons) with a litre of H20. Sprayed the entire contents then waited 1 hour (as per instructions from an internet source) then spayed down entire plant for several minutes with the garden hose...

The aphids have disappeared! So I won't have to buy Agent Orange just yet... will save that for all the damn box elders appearing along my property line (thanks to my neighbor).

splaker,

Be careful home soap recipes can sometimes burn your leaves if conditions are right... Always try to spot test a small area first...But glad recipe had you hose it off with water...

Can you get a picture of these aphids? I've never seen aphids eat a whole plant before. Usually aphids are more of a nuisance than anything else.

I've always just hosed them off but you have to do it every day and you have to use a very HARD spray of water. Don't be afraid you'll hurt the plant. Just blast away. If that doesn't work try the soap spray. I just put a drop or two of dish detergent in a spray bottle full of water and spritz the plant liberally. That usually takes care of them.

I do nothing about the aphids, and yet each year their population stays under control and barely noticeable. Why? Because my local birds eat them. But before they discovered this treat, they had to be lured in with some leftover food from my inside birds. And there needed to be enough aphids to get them to notice. Now, four years after I started this garden, I see very few aphids -- but lots of sparrows flitting about the roses. If you poison the aphids, you'll be making them unpalatable to the birds. And then you'll be locking yourself in a cycle of having to spray every year.

Oh, plus ladybugs and lacewings have been breeding in my garden -- as have some other beneficial predators. Again, if I used insecticides, they wouldn't have come -- and I'd be stuck doing pest control myself rather than letting their predators do it for me.

:-)

~Christopher

@Christoher, Why wouldn't the aphids return the next year? There's no way that the birds would eat every aphid... so you're in the same spot.

To the poster who requested a pic, I do not have one. What ever ate my plant did so last year...not this year... it was decimated... but recovered fairly well later in the summer... when I saw these tiny green guys clustered under and around the leaves I just assumed they were the same critters because I am pretty sure that is what I saw last year... but they may have been a more whitish color... can't recall now.. the plant wasnt eaten this year b/c I took action. Hopefully they really are gone

The aphids DO return, but their numbers are kept in check by everything that eats them. I never said I have "no aphids at all". But I never see them in "decimation" numbers like you apparently had last year. I have over a hundred roses out there in my small garden -- if they needed to be sprayed for bugs and disease to survive, I wouldn't bother growing them.

:-)

~Christopher

So I guess this is what ate my rose last year and the buggers are back! What are they and how can i rid the plant of them before it gets decimated again! Will Safer work? Thanks...

Yes safers insect killing soap should work if sprayed directly on them cause it only works by contact of the spray...Since they are huge you could pick them off and kill...

Least toxic would be the safers...Spinosad works well but can harm bees if sprayed at the wrong time...Spinosad works by contact & ingesting...

Wow those buggers are hungry splaker!

That's the same thing that was eating my sunny knockout. Since I was not a fan of the knockout I got rid of it anyways. However, those are not aphids. They are a type of caterpillar, maybe tent caterpillars. You will need BTK caterpillar concentrate. It's available everywhere, big box stores & garden centres. It kills caterpillars & worm type pests. Different than the regular insecticide. Good luck. They can do a lot of damage quickly.

BT only works on true caterpillars SO by chance if its not a TRUE caterpillar then BT will not work... Other words BT does not work on rose slugs, etc. Just so you know...

I think they are sawfly larvae not caterpillar

Why can't you simply pick them off?