Hard to say for sure but it really looks like rose slugs. Not dangerous but quite unsightly.

Lance

It looks really bad, but I found a link with a picture of rose slugs and the damage they do, doesn't look like mine, or the nibbling. Something has been nibbling my delphinium seedlings, too, but since I put them up on plant stands (and away from my shasta daisy bed where they were on the ground in a dishpan to get some sun), I haven't noticed any new damage on those. Would a chipmunk do that? They or squirrels have been digging out new seedlings and in my pots, am taking all the preventive measures I can think of for that, a royal pain, had to plant some seeds over again that were hard to start. They picked the ones with the biggest leaves on the delphs.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rose slugs and photo of leaf damage

Am I in the twilight zone? It looks like fertilizer or spray burn.

something was not right. Everything had an emerald green background. What do these people at Ivillage do to us, make us feel like we are losing it. LOL.

No, maybe I am losing it lol. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out what could have splashed on those leaves. They are mostly low ones, but some are higher. All I've done was applied Penningtons to all the roses except four in pots and two newer ones on the back arbor.

I spread the mulch back on after I fertilized, we had some rain just once I think after that. Haven't fertilized the grass, sprayed my own yard for anything, don't think the guy who cuts my grass sprays anything.

When I poured the Penningtons into the measuring cup, I was kneeling, maybe some dust from that got airborne? OR when I was scratching it in, most of the ones affected I was facing west.

Aliska,

Funny that you should post this. I, too, have this spotting on one of my roses...Charles de Mills. I think it occurs on only one of my two Charles de Mills, however. I don't spray and hadn't fertilized, so I don't think it was either of those things. It's weird, but, it doesn't look like it's anything to worry about.

Robert

It does look like rose slug, or sawfly larvae. (Are they the same?--question for the experts). It appears the leaf tissue is eaten halfway through, leaving a transparant opaque layer of tissue. This is what rose slugs do. Look on the underside of the leaves and maybe you will find the tiny caterpillar-type things like in the 2nd pic in your link. They blend in and are sometimes hard to see.

I went out this morning just now, it is just light, with my magnifying glass, turned over a lot of leaves on many bushes, and there are some with lesser damage on the other side.

Here is what I observed.

No evidence of tiny wormlike or sluglike creatures, doesn't mean they aren't somewhere. A line under a leaf section of what looks to me like some insect eggs hanging from tiny webs, all exactly the same length, a whole row of those, only that one area of that so far, can't estimate the size because it was under the magnifying glass. Then I saw one tiny grasshopper, maybe a leafhopper. My daughter is supposed to bring some baby hawks over this am en route to the raptor center, so I'll ask her to take a look, too. That was the first thing she said last night. Aphids.

So it appears I have multiple problems, and I'm not ruling out rose slugs. Oh do I hate to spray with all the bee problems and other beneficial critters, will definitely not use that Bayer stuff you put on the ground that is absorbed by the plant because I googled a post that said it drives the earthworms away, but I guess I'm going to have to decide on something.

I never sprayed before other than that ortho powder and hoped I'd never have to, don't even have a sprayer, don't have a clue how to use one.

I had aphids on my nasturtiums years ago and despite that ortho nasty powder I whooshed out of the squeeze container on them, every plant died, and I never wanted to grow them again.

Saw one green aphid and got a couple other darker, smallish things that fell off my fingers before I could have a look at them.

It does look like rose slug, or sawfly larvae. (Are they the same?--question for the experts).

Yes, they are. Or rather, the rose slug is one of the sawflies (there are other species that feed on other plants, usually trees).

aliska12000, the spots are rose slug damage. I'm convinced of that.

The string of eggs hanging on threads is the cavalry coming to relieve your aphid troubles. :-)

Those are lacewing eggs. The babies are such predators mama lays each egg seperately on its own thread so that the first baby to hatch doesn't immediately eat the others as its first meal.

If you ever look up close at a lacewing larva you'll swear you're watching the inspiration for the creature in the movie Alien.......... The jaws are huge (relative to the head size), curved needles. It'll grab an aphid with the jaws, swing it up in the air and then pierce the body to suck out the insides. Once it's finished it drops the empty husk, promptly moves on to the next aphid and repeats.

Last night when I was looking at this, it was on an emerald green screen (something from the twilight zone). After seeing it this morning in normal color, I too think it could be sawfly.

Yes, sawfly larvae (rose slugs). Predators may have already eliminated most or all of the rose slugs by now. At any rate, they usually are a problem for only a couple weeks.

I usually see the small, thin green caterpillar-looking rose slugs stretched along the curving edge of a leaf or curving along the stem and swelling leading up to a new bud. Just pluck them off and toss in the grass.

I check for slugs mornings and early evenings. Don't think I've ever seen them mid-day. Maybe they hide from the heat then.

Good luck,
Kate

Thank you, everybody, so much. I'll go with the consensus that it is slugs. The damage has been there for some time before it occurred to me (I'm the kind who doesn't see what they don't want to see), that, yes I could not get through this rose business w/o more glitches. When they were talking about spray regimens at the rose club, I'm sitting there thinking I don't want to bother with that. At some point I may have to, but I don't think for now.

And the birds. I'll bet they have taken care of some of it. Those lacewing eggs or whatever they are were pure white, you can see them without a magnifying glass, I'll leave those alone! Brushed off a few I saw.

I'll just keep an eye on things for now. It is the weakest or smallest bushes they have damaged the most except DL looks pretty healthy otherwise.

patricia43, I had something weird happen here but now I realize it was a type of popup ad my blocker didn't catch. I don't know what the emerald screen could be, maybe a time warp lol. I sure remember that Win 95 blue screen I'd get often enough though.

You people are a fountain of knowledge. The way those little eggs were strung out like Christmas lights, if I'd had more patience, I'd have tried to capture that with my best macro lens, don't think I have one with sufficient magnification. It was kind of awesome and beautiful to behold.

Aliska, you don't have to spray for sawfly larvae. As soon as you see the damage--leaves not eaten all the way through--start searching near the damage on the underside of the leaves. Then squish the tiny little buggers.

It's not unusual for insects to go after the weakest plant. Sometimes a vigorous one is able to mount a better defense than a weak one is, so the weak one ends up being a better host for the babies to become adults.

veilchen, I'll try to get a jump start on it and be more observant the rest of the season, and will squish the little buggers if I find them, hopefully they're done breeding this year. It's a relief to know I don't have to spray for that.

I noticed yesterday that Veilchenblau looks healthy with no problems except the leaves seem to be curling up, wonder what is causing that, too much water? I had to water when it was so dry, now they are all going to get more than can be possibly good for them all at once.

york rose, I wonder what their defense is, maybe the breeders have done studies on it, has to be something in the genetic makeup that make the leaves unpalatable or undesirable.

We've had a deluge of rain with no end in sight. I am bracing myself for what that might cause. Yesterday was awful, got soaking wet trying to catch some runoff that built up too fast, then lost power for several hours. Nothing compared to a small town about 30 miles away. Many houses were flattened by a tornado that went through there. My daughter had helped do the drywall on an old farmhouse of a famiy she got to know, husband, wife and 5 little girls. The whole place is flattened, luckily there were only a few injuries and no deaths. Muscatine, Grandview and Fruitland, Iowa, got hit very hard yesterday.