Just for the sake of chronicling this experience, I ended up spraying right after my last reply. It took about 3 mins and exactly 1 gallon to do all the trees and some shrubs. The wind was so calm and I knew it was my only chance. It rains here about once or twice a month yet it will happen when i need it to stay dry. It looks like some light sprinkles now.

Ester....... Michael is correct in that there is no need to pull out the heavy guns right now, if the insect causing the damage is the rose curculio. According my gardening notes, curculios only stay above ground for about 8 weeks and the end of June is near the end of their above ground cycle. That's a rough estimate because it depends on when then first surfaced. Right now, they are migrating into your garden, but are not breeding in your garden, so you will not see a whole lot of damage. I stopped disbudding about a week ago, the roses are full of buds and I have only found three damaged buds and two curculios this week. You can find photos of both the damage and the insect in the HMF GLOSSARY under "rose curculio". I am adding a link to a post I made on GW that explains how I finally managed to accomplish my goal of keeping them from breeding in the garden without the use of poisons. Please note, my garden ended up having a serious infestation and it was either cure the infestation or stop growing roses. It took several years of battling the bugs before it got that bad. Smiles, Lyn Here is a link that might be useful: Non-Toxic Rose Curculio Control

if you planted it.. its transplant shock ... if its still in the pot... improper care at bigboxstore since it was delivered in april or so ... keep it properly watered.. and lets see how it looks next spring ... see link for how to water ... and plant.. if you havent done so already ... ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thank you everyone. I am so bummed. I have 7 roses that I cut back tonight that have it and my husband is going to rip them out of the ground tomorrow. I only have 3 roses near them that don't have it. And, 2 others further away that are safe. What a bummer. I noticed it a couple of summers ago, but I'm a busy mom of 2 and just wasn't sure what it was and just thought it was new leaf growth. If I had known, I could have probably ripped out the ones that first came down with it and saved most of my roses. Does anyone know how long I need to wait before I can plant new roses? Would it be best to wait until next Spring? The people that lived in this house before me planted these roses all so close together, so I think when I do plant new ones I am going to do less and space them out more. Thanks so much for all your help everyone! I just assumed I could spray them and they'd be ok. :(