The browning on the leaf edges in your first photo looks like drought. Your second photo is certainly the most colorful rhododendron leaf I've seen...but nothing I recognize. It's not clear to me what the insects are, but I suspect you may have more than one problem to address, cultural contitions (water) and what else, I'm not sure. I think the best thing for you to do is take a sample leaf for a visual ID as suggested earlier. I don't know exactly where you are...Seattle area, Wells in Medina has a very experienced staff (I was there just yesterday)but any full service nursery should be able to help. You can also type the name of your county, followed by extension agent office, into a search engine like google and come up with your closest extension office where they would also be able to examine a sample from your plant. Try to include one of the insects, put the leaf in a zip lock sandwich bag. And let us know....

Cornell insecticidal soap recipes vary slightly on different websites. If memory serves me, mine had the base recipe of 1/2 teaspoon Dr Bronners liquid baby soap and 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda . Can't remember if I used a tiny bit of apple cider vinegar about 1/4 teaspoon, and about 5 pumps of the dog spray in 24 ounces of water shaken in a spray bottle. My friend gave me the dog spray 4 years ago, I dont know where she bought it . Ingredients are Neem oil, Lemongrass, Catnip, Citronella, "and other essential oils" it did not list. After sitting on the counter 3 days the spray bottle smelled so strong I threw the rest away before it blew up. All of this was experimental, i had nothing to lose since all of my blooms were decimated. You might want to test a recipe on a small area before blasting your prize rose. Super Supplements might have a good substitute for the Dog spray. My strong advice is don't inhale and dont use it on the dog.

Lydia, My best advice to you now is contact your local rose society/club. They have the latest information. Such groups are usually more than willing to lend assistance. You may be given a number of approaches by them for combatting midge. I believe you will have to make a decision on which one you will follow. Trial and error will probably be the route you take until a satisfactory treatment is found. In the mean time, go to your retail establishments that do sell insecticides. Study the labels to see: first, if rose midge fly is listed as an insect it kills, second, look for a systemic insecticide, which should work. Remember, it must be rose midge maggot you want to kill, not the adults. I do not think the adults even eat once emerged from the cocoon, so a body contact spray would have to hit the mite to kill it. They are sneaky and elusive. To get a spray on them would be quite a feat. Systemic insecticide will penetrate the interior of the growing tip with its layers of packed leafy structures where the midge fly maggots live. It's hard for an insecticide to get to their location unless it is systemic. Systemics are absorbed into the plant tissue where they are needed in the case of midge fly maggots. Systemics do not generally translocate to subsequent new growth that is made after a spray session. As a sprayed tip lengthens the fresh growth is vulnerable to a new midge attack having no insecticide in it. Growing tips require repeated sprayings at 7-10 day intervals until they produce green flower bud(s), the size of a green pea, the vegetable. At this point the tip is safe from any further midge attacks, and needs no further spraying. Also set out several yellow and blue plastic cups smeared with cooking oil. This should trap some midge adults, maybe enough to keep damage down to an acceptable level. Put the cups fastened to little sticks about 30-40 cm above the ground. The road to victory has many obstacles. A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits. Hang in there. Moses

vaporvac it is my understanding that rose midge is not new. If correct, I assume that roses have had plenty of time to develop defenses against them. Regarding your comment that midge is a sucking feeder. Here is how the immune system acts towards aphids - another sucking insect. "Author: MILES P W Author Address: WAITE AGRIC. RES. INST., UNIV. ADELAIDE, ADELAIDE, S. AUST. Title: DYNAMIC ASPECTS OF THE CHEMICAL RELATION BETWEEN THE ROSE APHID MACROSIPHUM-ROSAE AND ROSE BUDS Published in: Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, volumn 37, pages 129-136, (1985). Abstract: "Dynamic aspects of the chemical relation between the rose aphid [Macrosiphum rosae] and rose buds.In warm weather, M. rosae (L.) walks off buds of hybrid tea roses during a critical period coinciding with the opening of the sepals. This behavior could not be related to histologically detectable barriers to feeding, nor to changes in the water content of the tissues or in their composition with respect to total soluble carbohydrate, amino nitrogen or phenolic compounds; major changes in tissue chemistry, effected by spraying the bushes with urea, did not affect the time at which the aphids left the buds. Tissue sap expressed from stems and sepals showed a significant increase in catechin content after, rather than during, the critical period. Once expressed, however, sap from buds at the critical stage showed a sharp in vitro rise in catechin content over a few hours, up to levels approximating those against which the insects discriminated in choice tests. The insects could well be sensitive to a developing capacity of tissue to accumulated catechin, possibly in response to their feeding activity." Here is a link that might be useful: link for Miles' abstract above Here is a general plant immune system article: http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/King/PlantImmune.html