It depends if you want to go the organic route or not. Moses sprays just the new growth with Bayer Insect 3 in 1 is a systemic if applied as a soil drench which amkes any part of the plant toxic but spraying just the new growth and tiny buds is less toxic. If the bud is larger than a green pea it should not be susceptible to midge at that point. Others use Spinosad on just the new growth and buds. Both are very toxic to bees though so caution is necessary. Moses sprays at dusk when the bees are not active. I have rinsed the soil then potted the roses up in purchased potting soil then wrapped the pot with a plastic shopping bag tied around the cane base to try to keep any midge from dropping into the potted soil. These will be going in the ground pot and all over the winter here in MA. and planted next spring. I'll rinse the soil from the roots again and keep an eye on new growth for signs of midge. It seems it takes a while to eradicate this scourge from the garden. I've also used the yellow cups, in my case pinwheels, sprayed with vegetable oil to catch the midge as they fly around. Patty from IL has had very good luck with the cup method as has Samuel from NY. I am catching insects just not quite sure if they're midge or something else. It seems it's a long drawn out process to rid your garden of midge but taking precautions should help a lot. Jim and Samuel are also trying beneficial nematodes to see if this will help. Here's a link to that discussion. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/4834388/jim-in-pa-and-samuel-in-adirondacks-which-nematodes?n=57 and here's Moses routine- http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/4331751/rose-midgean-approach-that-works-for-me?n=18 Hope this helps. Sharon

We had a pretty serious midge problem the previous two years here in the cutting fields, but this year we went totally organic and I've seen very little midge. I don't know if there's something we have that actually kills the little buggers or what that we'd been killing off and now they've come back, but it's been great not seeing those burned tips so often! We change a few months back from organic sprays to only using Actively Aerated Compost Tea, and roses we've not been able to get for cut in a couple years suddenly started producing good roses (Elina/Peaudouce, Geoff Hamilton, and others), plus it seems to have eliminated botrytis on our white roses. Powdery Mildew (our worst summer disease here) has been eliminated on the vast majority of roses, and has been losing hold on the roses that did have it, it's actually been curative in some cases (where foliage that had PM cleaned up). In reading that book "Teaming with Microbes" it said that the AACT using fungally based compost can actually kill nematodes because the good fungus in the soil around the roots will strangle the nematodes (they had an actual photo of that occurring). We don't have the bad nematodes that I've ever seen, but I'm wondering if maybe that same fungus kills the midge larvae, or something like it does. All these good fungus and bacteria are eliminated by chemical sprays, particularly the good ones right at the roots. They are also killed by strong chemical fertilizers. I don't really know for sure if this has been the cause for a much better rose year for us, but it does make sense, and it's a heckuva lot cheaper to do for us, even including the cost of the Compost Tea maker we bought. Plus, the crew doesn't fuss about spraying, and in fact are fairly enthusiastic about it (for our crew, LOL). Our rose production has increased about 44% over last year, some of this is due to newly planted roses getting big enough to cut, and stopping some excessive pruning practices in the past (we stopped that 2 years ago). --Ron

And just so everyone knows, so far there are four people we know, barring a catastrophe, will be here and four others that have said they planned to come. Since this is on my property and I am not prepared to host the public at large, I will not be advertising on any public venue except here and our church. If you want to invite your friends or family to come with you however, I have no problems with that.

Ellie, your garden is beautiful!! It's so frustrating to not get any blooms. Some have had success with spraying yellow cups with oil to trap the midge. Others have used the cups and covered the ground below the roses to the perimeter of the leaf canopy with either plastic or landscape cloth to create a barrier to the soil where the midge pupate and emerge as adults. The plastic/fabric can't be covered with mulch though since the midge would pupate in the layer of mulch so this would take away from the look of your beautiful garden. Jim- I ordered the spray tanglefoot since I read that the brush on one was awful to use. A rose forum member, Rebecca maybe, also used the brush on and stated it also caught bees and butterflies!! Not good. The spray on doesn't trap these insects but it doesn't seem to do any better than the cooking oil does and is pretty expensive. Just my observations. Sharon