They made me shudder too, Seil, so much, I had to allow DH to do the pruning. When he found out what they were, he wanted to get out the gasoline and light a match. floridarose, I decided we'd prune it down and see what happens next year. I'm afraid they may have already hatched by the time we got them pruned. SO SICK! I guess if the plant is a goner so be it, but I have quite a few in the back and front yard. I guess I'll find out next year. Jessicabe, If they are that smart, I'm VERY afraid. I probably shouldn't have read that because I've already had bad dreams about those things. Kitty

Hi all, this is my first post under the rose board! A little background on my plant. I have many plants in my yard, but this is my first rose bush. (Can you believe it!) this was a bag variety that I got on sale at a big box store so i wasn’t expecting much. I am pretty sure it was half dead when I bought it. Anyway. It has given me a few blooms. My question is, is this the dreaded chilli thrip? The leaves are starting to curl under and there are some brown spots. There was a crepe myrtle planted over this that I had a bad infestation of aphids and black mold and it has since been taken care of so I was wondering if the rose bush was affected by that. Thank you for any help. Also do the disease resistant varieties protect against most diseases/bugs? I just bought three of these and wondering what to expect. I have tried several times to post this and it won't post so I am going to put the photos on the comments section!

Thank you Paul. I dont spray, atleast not started yet as I keep thinking each year that I need to start because of blackspot and thrips. Not have not done anything lately. Maybe watered with some seaweed a few weeks ago. It's been cooler than normal, 60 to 80 degrees. We did get some rain a week or so ago. Only 3 Rose's out of several in a row are affected, and they are not close to each other. Not sure what is going on. Removing most of the affected leaves for now.

Yup rust! Some areas are prone to it. Some roses are susceptible to it. I live in an area where rust can be a problem, but one way to deal with it is to get rid of any rose that gets rust and replace with a rose that doesn’t. I don’t have time to deal with roses disease. I only spray a dormant oil with copper once when I prune. If a rose still gets rust then I shovel prune and replace with something else. Paul Neyron was a rust bucket. I replaced it with Maggie. Check out Antique Rose Emporium for some excellent disease resistant roses. Also a rose that is disease resistant in one area of the country doesn’t mean it will be happy elsewhere. In some places the main problem is blackspot and rust isn’t a thing.