I wish you the best Ana C 6b Ontario.... When I got divorced in 2020 instead of keeping my house I moved partly because of rose midge...Because I don't spray...My trouble started when I started getting free mulch and compost from our local compost facility...

I'm sure MOSES and others will be along to help you out...

This topic interests me. As a beginner home rose grower I thought the only thing we really had to worry about was incurable, airborne transmitted Rose Rosette Disease but I've been seeing signs of what seems to be rose midge: A few rose bushes have some (not all) buds firmly tilted sideways or down and then sometimes fall off at the slightest touch. Is that rose midge? I trim the branch several inches below the bud hoping to remove whatever is doing it.

Some old threads on Rose Midge....

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6381226/what-do-you-do-about-rose-midge-fly-infestation

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6391926/triazicide-or-ortho-bug-clear-lawn-insect-killer-for-rose-midge-fly

What does rose midge damage look like? Feeding by the larvae causes bent, misshapen, or blasted buds and withering stem tips. Flower buds and growing shoots turn brown and finally black. with a magnifying lens, look for the small whitish larvae between the petals and sepals at the base of the flower bud to verify the presence of midge larvae.

https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/nurspest/insects/rose-midge

Thank you so much Jim, useful links. Indeed, sometimes you wish for a blank slate kind of garden. I can't imagine where the midge flies came from, I used bagged mulch. Maybe infected plants. It's amazing how these insects are so narrowly specialized on rose buds. I'll see where I can find some of the insecticides recommended in other posts.

Fumbling with Roses - thank you for sharing and good luck with your garden. I'll provide an update later in the season if I have any success.

Off the web::::

Rose midge may be moving into new sites/plantings via infested plants, particularly the difficult to detect larval/pupal stage in the soil. One method to reduce the risk of introduction of this pest is to buy bare root roses or to discard the soil and rinse the roots of plants brought in from infested sites.

I wouldn't wish this evil pest on my worse enemy...BEST of luck Ana C 6b Ontario and Fumbling with flowers ....

Thanks, Jim, for the links you provided.

My battle with rose midge fly is relentless. The spraying program, although intense, usually gives the best protection that I am aware of, at least for me. Not to denigrate others' methods, but I can only recommend what works for me.

In a nut shell:

1. Start spraying every 10 days to 2 weeks all summer long beginning when the first emerging shoots after spring pruning, are leafing out. The shoots with little unfolding leaves should be no longer than 1"!!!

2. Use Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer at 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. A spreader sticker included is optional. I have not found it to be necessary.

3. Spray a rose bush only when it is fully hydrated. Never spray an obviously wilted, drooping, dehydrated, etc., bush. Never spray when temps are above 80° F., even if cloudy/overcast.

4. Spray until drops of spray appear on the leaves. Do not over spray or go back and spray a bush again thinking you are giving it a good measure! NEVER! Spray thoroughly, though, paying special attention to the growing tips of the stem.

Do you think Bayer Advanced would also work for leafhoppers?

Melissa,

The Bayer product is systemic, so I see no reason why it cannot kill leaf hoppers. My question for you is: Do you have a seriously large leaf hopper problem that you need to get rid of them, or are there just a few seen, here and there? The reason I ask is that most rose gardeners have so few leaf hoppers about, that the small amount is tolerated and no insecticide intervention is made. I have never had to spray specifically for leaf hoppers, their presence is relatively small here, never an issue.

Moses

I have an aster yellows disaster going on since last summer. I don’t see leaf hoppers but I’m told that’s how it’s spread. So I have been spraying weekly with various pesticides. Mostly organic ones but I also put down the bioadvanced grub stuff that’s supposed to get leaf hoppers when they’re still in the ground.

Thank you Moses and Elena!

It is very helpful to know how these efforts measure up elsewhere. I can't find imidacloprid here but I found products with permethrin and pyrethrin which hopefully will have similar effects. I see Doctor Doom has permethrin.

I plan to try a weekly pass spraying tips and drenching the soil. Not sure if I should keep spraying with neem. Hopefully I'll get some blooms, before the Japanese beetles show up. There are also saw fly, different types of aphids, and rose slugs here, and I have to fence the rose garden from deer, so I really shouldn't be growing roses.

I imagine the bugs came with infected plants I bought in the past. This yard had only a few perennials before we moved in and my neighbors don't really garden. Jim's advice to try getting roses bare root is very wise.

Thanks again!

Ana

Ana, I have ordered Doctor Doom from Canada. I am also very recommended blue cups with oil, they are working for trips as well.

Elena, are the oil blue cups working for Japanese beetles too, do you know? Do you just put a little vegetable oil or a mix of oil/water? I might get racoon visits with edible oil :)

Ana, I am using Canola Spray, but bet any oil would work. I do not know about JB...Had them in my previous house on fruit trees. Not fun at all, sorry.

Melissa: Believing ”aster yellows disaster” was a typo or dictation error, I did a quick due diligence search prior to asking you what you ”really meant to say”.

The resultant Univ. of MN Ext monograph set me straight. Very surprising - the problem seems midge-like.

Thanks rifis. Sadly not a typo only a misnaming. It should be called kills everything and makes it look monstrous yellows. I took out more plants yesterday. As far as I can tell it doesn’t affect roses! But!!! I’m strongly suspicious of two small lilacs. There is so little research on this.

I too noticed this week that I have rose midges. Thanks for the info. I will try some of the suggestions. For the blue cups, where do you place them?

Ana, just wondering if you noticed an improvement with what you tried?

In my zone 7 garden, rose midge was a big problem. Last year I tried to control it using Dinotefuran as systemic drench treatment in spring and it worked for a while but midges were back by mid of summer . Also it is very expensive to use as systemic drench.

This year, I tried two step approach.

1. Cutter backyard spray for mosquitos. One treatment in early June and it took care of all rose midges till now. It says it will last whole summer and I have one more as backup that I will be doing in August. Very economical solution so far ($10 at walmart/amazon)

2. I also used Ortho BugClear insect killer in my battery operated fogger from walmart by HART. One can get similar one from Lowes (Kobalt) or HomeDepot. It is very easy and effective way to control insects in the garden. You can check videos on youtube and you will see how effective it is and midges stand no chance. It reaches 10-15 feet vertically and even more laterally. That makes it easy to spray on climbers and as a mass application for big garden.

Sheila, sorry to hear you're struggling with this pest. I was desperate at that time. I meant to post recently an update but there's always something else on the to do list.

I am not sure anymore that my rose damage was rose midge, as many of the plants withered away gradually after that first round of spring growth (and black or blind tips). Cutting the canes back I saw they were brown inside so I suspect the plants were actually damaged by the sharp frost we had here in late spring (after growth was already on its way due to mild winter and warm spring) and not by rose midge. At that time I also doused them in Pyrethrin (BugBGone here) and neem oil. Some of the roses pushed out new basal growth and bloomed happily after but I think they were simply hardier. No sign of rose midge later, so it must have been the frost. Plenty of sawfly and some Japanese beetles, instead :)

Btw the roses that survived are Sophy's Rose, Summer Romance, Ascot, Pink Piano, Bathsheba, Graham Thomas, The Generous Gardener, and Moonlight in Paris. I assume they are hardier.

Good luck with your garden :) There's always something. (I'm just about to give up on my boxwood - there is a boxwood moth that apparently made it to Ontario - all around this area I see skeletonized shrubs.)

Tututara, thank you for sharing your solution, sounds like it worked.

Ana

Thank you so much, Tututara!! I will look into those items. Thank you Ana as well. I also had boxwood issues. I think that I had boxwood blight. We used a copper fungicide spray and it cleared it up. Now there’s a boxwood moth????

Sheila, I thought it was blight initially but I saw the caterpillars. They start below and centre of the shrub and skeletonize the leaves, leaving behind fine webs and small droppings.https://inspection.canada.ca/en/plant-health/invasive-species/insects/box-tree-moth

I sprayed with BTK in the spring but one probably needs to spray routinely because they're back.

It's amazing how they find the plants, I had a shrub in a treed area behind the house but it got on their radar easily.

I'll spray again but I may remove the shrubs next year, I just don't have the time. The 'winter beauty' box type was more resilient, probably because their leaf is thicker.

Ana, thanks for the info.I checked and didn’t see anything like that. But its good to know about it. We have around 15 boxwoods in the front of my house so that would be terrible.

What’s BTK? You can’t find Bayer‘s stuff in Canada. You’d have to travel to NY to buy them. I use Bayer‘s 2 in 1 for midge, without it I won’t have blooms.

BTK is a biological insecticide (the acronym comes from the name of a bacteria) that is sold here under the Safers brand. It works for certain caterpillars if sprayed while they are feeding.

The first flush was not affected by midges at all, although they are present. Blue sticky traps have proven to be very effective among other control methods. You have to know your enemy up close.:)

Those bugs are much bigger than midge.

I wish...

The adult rose midge (Dasineura rhodophaga) is very small—about 1.5 to 2 mm long, roughly the size of a gnat or fruit fly.

Key Characteristics:

• Color: Dark brown to black body
• Wings: Transparent and fringed with fine hairs
• Antennae: Long and beaded
• Flight: Weak flyers, often seen hovering close to rose buds or new growth

Just reporting back that I am not seeing the rose tip damage this spring so i tend to think it was the late frost that damaged the plants last year. I’ll still keep an eye on it.

Elena, i plan to try the blue cups for the sawfly and the Japanese beetles.

By the way, the boxwood moth is in its ’hungry caterpillar’ stage now, if any of you are fighting it, it’s a good time to spray.