I think this is such a horrific subject that not many want to tackle it. And, if all that I have read is true, there's not much for rose gardeners to use in some parts of the world since many areas have banned to home gardeners the necessary amunition to fight the battle. Although, I did come upon what I think may be the best advice I've seen. If you are able to aquire one of the recommended products, I would spray or sprinkle your pots.

I'm certainly no expert when it comes to midge, but I'm doing battle presently and it's all out war this season to at least try to get it under good control. As far as I know the only remedy is to get those critters in the soil before they land on the rose foliage.

It would be nice if someone here has the answer. If they do and have been successful, they deserve a medal (a gold one!).

Here is a link that might be useful: Conneticut Rose Society

No, unfortunately the containers will not make a difference. Once the midge finds them, they will infest them equally. This said, it is worth the risk to get a few roses, place them in a pot and grow them on your deck. It will likely take the midge a while to find them so you might get a few years out of them. Hard to say really where nature and insects are concerened.

I've always had a small amount of midge in my garden, but last year it surfaced in epidemic proportions. I hardly had blooms in my entire front bed, but the rest of the garden in the back and sides of the house were largely unaffected. However, I started seeing the midge progress into these areas too by seasons end.

I feel for you. Midge is truly horrific to deal with...I'd prefer JB's to be honest, but wouldn't wish either on anyone.

Thanks so much majenta and morden-man for your comments. Isn't it sad to say that we would prefer JB over midge. I completely agree, JB are bad, but at least you can do something about it. Midge I can't even see, let alone battle. I can't use Merit in my garden, I keep honey bees here as well. The imadacloprid in Merit is highly toxic to honeybees.

When I came up with the idea of the containers on the deck I thought that even if the midge find the roses there they would lack the soil underneath to complete their cycle. And soil in the containers should be easier to treat, or cover, that a regular flower bed. I'll give it a try and let you know how it will work.

I also wondered how long midge hang around a yard after all roses are gone. Will I have them here forever, or is there a certain period of time after which they dwindle? Does anybody know?

Containers would certainly be easier to treat, but based on my experience, they have enough soil to complete their life cycle and stop a container rose from blooming all summer. As an experiment, I took a potted Queen of Sweden and potted Strike it Rich, both excellent bloomers with good vigour and placed them from the backyard where they were unnaffected my midge into the front yard that was devastated. The midge found hit the containers within a week and shut down all blooming from then on.

What did minimize the midge significantly was removing the top half inch of soil and mulch in the beds where they gestate and then hard pruning all the rose bushes as the larvae midge is only active in the new growth. The subsequent new growth was relatively free of midge, but this could be irrelevant as I experimented in doing this late in our season, so I can't benchmark this properly relative to the rest of the growing season. It could be there cycle was finished or winding down for the year. Yet, it gave me some hope for this season as I will be taking a different clean-up and pruning regime in the affected beds.

I remember now, how much I hate the format and user experience of this forum and the lack of edit capability and other generic internet forum functionality.

Hey GW admins, ever hear about VBulletin? Time to welcome in the 20th century...

I have no problem with midge (so far - cross fingers) and actually don't know much about them, but here's a suggestion. If they need to drop down into soil to complete their life cycle, how about putting tin foil, cheese cloth or muslin around your rose and over the pot. Or one of those red plastic things you can buy at Holes for reflecting the red spectrum back at the tomatoes to help them grow.

Okay those were probably stupid ideas, but if it were me, I would try something like this - can't hurt.

Good luck, hope you find some way to enjoy your roses!

CArol

I don't think it's a stupid idea. Something like that should work for just a few pots. And in fact, I would cetainly consider giving it a try for a small number of roses. Where the problem lies though is that they seem to love large rose gardens where even using newspaper on the soil becomes so labour intensive (been there - done that)that the whole idea is dismissed.
Great idea Carol.

That was exactly my idea, that by planting them in containers on my deck they would be physically somewhat removed and that I can prevent them from completing their development cycle much easier in a pot. Well I am going to give it a try anyway. If it work, fine. If not, then I need to to think of something else.

On a side not, I shudder to think what cities like Portland in Oregon are with now that they have rose midge there as well.

Ah yes, the joys of midge where once beautiful blooms should be...

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In this last pic, you can actually see a couple of the little bastards (white worms) on the outside of the shrivelled bud.

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Morden man, those are the clearest pictures of midge damage I've ever seen. I hope they never hit my garden. At least now I'll know exactly what to look for.
Thanks,
Judith