Is this Bayer product the one based on Imidicloprid?
If so, yes, it is VERY bad for bees.

Moreover, Imidicloprid is a known trigger of seizures in "susceptible" individuals. Having had a dog whose seizures were triggered by garden chemicals, we will NEVER use that. If I had a small child I wouldn't use it.
Heck, bees are all over my garden, so ... we don't use it.

Let's look at a couple of things:

First, switching to organic gardening is a real huge major pain in the tushie. But it's worth it.

When you switch from a chemical-drenched garden to one grown without chemicals, there is going to be a "de-tox" period. For my garden, that lasted more than a year. During that time, your beneficial insects will begin to return, to eat "bad bugs."

You probably have no beneficials now, because earlier spraying killed them. It will take a little time for them to repopulate.

Secondly, when you quit chemicals, you will quickly find which roses simply cannot be grown without them. Look around, and identify which roses have disease problems (as opposed to insects). You don't want those roses! REMOVE THEM!

The world is full of roses that can grow beautifully in your garden with nothing but a garden hose. Why grow the weaklings? Shovel them out. Replace them with better roses. Fill some spots with salvias and other drought-tolerant natives. Those plants will reduce your water-needs, AND they will attract "good bugs."

Did you find a local person to help you with identification?
You really, REALLY should not have blackspot in your location. Can we see what the leaves with "blackspot" look like? Can you take a digital photo? Scan some leaves on a flatbed scanner???

We can help you, but a local person is really essential, for some things.

Jeri (at the coast, where disease problems REALLY kick in!)

Spray the roses off daily with a strong blast of water. This should get rid of the aphids AND spider mites. Keep doing it for several weeks. Point the water blast upwards to get the underside of the foliage as well as the top side.

What you need is beneficial insects to keep the aphids and spider mites at bay. That means no insecticide at all, so the beneficial population can build up. To grow "organically" means to tolerate a certain amount of insect damage. A healthy garden will have enough beneficials to keep the bad bugs under control.

The Bayer systemic isn't very good. Use the Bayer fungicide spray. It is far more effective. However...Blackspot...in Riverside California?!? Are you sure?

The main disease in So Cal is Rust--orange stuff on the backs of the leaves. If that is what you have, the only real effective "organic" method is digging out the roses that Rust badly and replacing them with highly rust resistant cultivars.

I agree with everything that has been said so far. The good news is that you live in an area where you will be able to grow great roses, without spraying, that bloom for 10-12 months of the year. Getting there will take some patience.

You don't mention what kind of roses your 48 are. If it was me, I would take out the most diseased ones and replace them with heat loving old ones like chinas and tea roses. Don't worry about the bugs - if you stop spraying ANY kind of insecticide, the good bugs will come back and take care of them, but it does take a while. You will have more butterflies, birds, and bees too.

Do let us know more details and post pictures.

Jackie

Behlgarden: I want to applaud you for wanting to continue the organic way. I was burnt out by roses 15 years ago in my previous garden (west of Chicago). It was a disaster with asphids, blackspot, chemical fertilizer, and chemical spray. My roses were naked by late fall, and barely survived the winter.

This year I did research in advance before I resume growing roses. This is what I found:

1) High nitrogen fertilizer encourages asphids. Here we have alkaline clay soil, high in phosphorus, but deficient in nitrogen - ZERO asphids.

2) Some folks in Colorado reported controlling asphids by planting chives next to roses.

3) A British paper advised watering during the SUNNIEST time, like 12 noon. Blackspots germinate when the leaves are wet for more than 7 hours. Watering at the base of the rose, and during the hottest time of the day encourages quick evaporation.

4) The same source advises mulching with aged horse manure to control blackspot. There's no tree-bark mulch in my garden, NOR the public rose park nearby (just bare grouond). But in your drier climate, you need mulch (can always top-dress mulch with horsemanure).

Studies done with Artillery fungus shot up from tree bark mulch show that larger chunk mulch, like pine bark nuggets are slowest to decompose, and less likely to sprout spores. There are at least 25 types of fungi that grow on wood mulch.

My rose garden is a piece of cake this year: no insects (they don't like horsemanure! LOL!). No weeds either with horsemanure mulch. It rains a lot this year. We had a 10 hours rain this month. I dusted my roses with WHOLEGRAIN cornmeal when the leaves were wet. Cornmeal stick on like glue, hasn't come off after subsequent all-night rains.

So far zero blackspot, the 2 yellow leaves on Mary Rose, and one leaf on Lilian Austin are just from waterlogged soil, and NOT from BS as I had previously mistaken.

I'm happy with my garden, 100% organic. To supply nitrogen to my deficient soil, I mix alfafa meal with horsemanure before I mulch my rose.

I appreciate all responses. on varities of roses I cant tell as I just bought this home two months ago and lot of roses are yet to bloom. I see some antique, some hybrid tea, and some are very very fragrent. I will continue to fight the remainder of 2011 with organic way to control pests and diseases.

for watering I have drip irrigation and for mulch I am using cut grass from lawn. lawn grass decomposes very fast when wet and I hope it would benefit the roses. I have been taking pictures of each rose as it blooms. once I have all 48 bush bloom pictures, I will put them up here for ID.

thanks.

Behlgarden: grass clippings is great for retaining moisture - I have them in my tomato garden. I don't have to water that garden, but I notice a decline in fruit production since we did not put cow manure in the tomato bed for this year.

Both Roseseek in S. CA, and I in Illinois have great result with AGED horse manure as mulch: tons of blossoms.

I would love to see your rose pictures from CA, behlgarden.

Jerijen: thanks for the info. on imidacloprid killing bees. I googled "Bayer and the environment", and found tons of results, such as beekeepers in France protest against Bayer.

My neighbor used Ortho chemical to kill weeds. I found dead bees next to his garden. The large public rose park nearby is also heavy on chemical spray. There's only 1 bee out of the entire large park, on fragrant Eglantyne.

You would expect to see a swarm with hundred of roses, but no - Bayer zapped them all. I grow flowers for the bees, and it defeats the purpose to use chemical spray to kill them.

Strawberryhill, here are the pictures. see how it went from healthy when I started watering to dull and infected once critters showed up.
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Behlgarden: what a gorgeous, huge garden you have ! I love it!

I don't think it's your fault - let's blame it on the weather. When the weather is dry in IL, all sort of idiots show up: grasshoppers, Japanese beetles, and politicians. LOL!

High nitrogen has been blamed for asphids, and I was surprised to see it being blamed for blackspot as well in one of the University Extensions. The best way to control pesty critters is to bring in terrorists (I mean ladybugs).

There are tons of crawling millipedes in the horse manure I get - I wonder what these guys eat?

It looks like dry weather is the blame. I try to post a picture of my wildflower garden in IL to show what rain does to a garden, but I can't from photobucket. Please help, thanks.

I forget that you use grass clippings. When fresh, they burn. I store bags of grass clippings in my garage during the cold fall, and these bags heat up the entire garage.

My hubby doesn't bag the grass when he mowns the lawn. When the sun scorches down, these clumped grass clippings burn our lawn.

I put the grass clippings on the ground over the winter. Once it decomposes, we rototile into the soil in the spring.

Grass clippings on top tend to mat down and block the water from penetrating into the soil. They say the same about peat moss: OK to mix into the soil, but not on top. Peat moss on top blocks water from soaking into the dirt.

Strawberryhill, My watering into roses is via drips that is below the grass clipping mulch. I dont like water from sprinklers on to the leaves of roses. I do give roses a bath to bushes once in two weeks though.

On photo bucket, I couldnt figure that out either as it keeps telling me that resulution is too low.

I use picasa. upload picture into picaca, them share that alumb, copy the html link and paste into the post. you can pick how big picture you want and they have options. My entire garden picture are in this album, not trying to go off topic. I am yet to flower front yards, bought a lot of tupip and iris bulbs from costco today.
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Behlgarden: you help me a lot about posting pics - many thanks. I frequent a rose park nearby often: it's like 3/4 flowers, and only 1/4 leaves on their bushes. I ask their rosarian the secret: he said to use chemical fertilizer low in nitrogen, and high in phosphoric acid (the middle number). Less leaves mean less pest !!

Bone meal can supply phosphorus the natural way, but that stuff burns. Aged horse manure is best to produce more flowers.

I begin to question grass clippings in terms of fruit and flower production. We have the lowest yield in tomatoes this year, so I'll go back to cow manure next year.

MUCH of what we're seeing this year IS due to the weirder than usual weather. Diseases and insects are at all time highs. I'm seeing tremendous die back on normally RUDELY healthy, vigorous roses here (Iceberg, Sally Holmes, Polka, Grandmother's Hat and shrubs of all types)I've never seen before and it is NOT due to any chemical applications. These gardens all have dogs which are not restricted in any way, other than to not be allowed out front where they can get into trouble. One has three small children, one of which has developmental issues and can't be trusted not to touch or eat things you'd normally expect to be safe. I don't spray any pesticides or fungicides in those areas, period.

There aren't any aphids (too hot) but there are spider mites and scale which haven't been issues. There is the die back and slow growth which haven't been issues before. There is black spot and there is rust, and this is in arid gardens. But, this year, we got at least 150% normal rainfall. There has been humidity like never before. Morning fogs, afternoon mugginess and the compacted soils are just soggy with ground water and irrigation.

The roses which are doing best are getting hosed out at least twice monthly to remove debris and insects. We've been in a perfect model for Fire Blight, humid/cool, humid/hot, humid/cool and I'm sure similar things are attacking roses and other species, too. Common areas are being watered more heavily and run off is affecting homeowner plantings as well.

Few roses are behaving as they have for many years. It has to be the changed environment. Nothing else is different. Providing them with the resources they need is about all you can do without chemically making matters worse.

I agree about removing the offending varieties, but you should perhaps wait until you are sure the conditions aren't going back to what they were previously. It seems a shame to toss something that's been great for years based upon a season of weirdness.

As for horse manure, I had excellent results in arid, hot Newhall on virgin adobe, from "apples" still steaming, straight from the "machine". Just use enough water and keep it away from the crown/union of the plants. Worked wonders! Kim

Thanks, Kim, for backing me up. I have been scratching my head, "what have I done wrong with my tomato garden?", very much like behlgarden with her rose bed.

This year we didn't rototile the grass clippings into the soil, and did not add cow manure. The N-P-K ratio of grass clippings is 4-1-3. It's pretty low in the middle number, phosphorus, essential for flower and fruit production.

My wild flower garden (topped with leaves) is great with the rain we got. My rose garden is great with horse manure. Only my tomato garden is lousy topped with aged grass clippings.

Composition of horse manure is: 0.7 N, 0.25 P, and 0.77 K
Composition of cow manure is: 0.57 N, 0.23 P, and 0.62 K
Composition of oak leaves is: 0.8 N, 0.35 P, and 0.15 K

Oak leaves are highest in phosphorus 0.35 - So I'll dump it on ALL my gardens for next year.

Behlgarden: Have you checked your drip-irrigation to see if the system is working right? We have plenty of rain, but my tomato garden is lousy, so it must be the grass clippings on top.

You're welcome Strawberryhill. It's a process of elimination. It's easier when nothing else is different, which is the case in at least two of the gardens I'm seeing changes in. Mine is more difficult because everything is different, including climate and in ground versus potted. Kim

I love your Behl's garden with veges and exotic fruit trees. Your identification is correct: that's a lychee fruit and custard apple fruit. I ate those before, they are yummy, esp. the lychee fruit.

Another danger of grass clippings is if Weed & Feed was used on the lawn. We dethatched the lawn in the fall, dumped the clippings on the tomato bed, then fertilized the lawn. Only this year we skipped rototiling the clippings in the spring (were busy making two other large flower beds).

This has to be the worst tomato yield on record. At first they were all green and bushy, then they produced very little fruit, and died early. It's worse than the time my 3-years old daughter "shake-and-bake" my tomato garden with those pellets chemical fertilizer.

Here's a picture of my wildflower garden in July, but the tomato garden is a wasteland !!

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