>Other question: Do rose slugs only feed from the underside of the leaf??? Has anyone every spotted them on the top side of leaves or on the canes??? Jim, my memory is incomplete. I might have seen some on the tops of leaves, but if so, that's not the most common place to find them. For sure I've seen a zillion of them on the canes, as well as the undersides of leaves. I've also seen multiple times when canes were chewed all the way around, sometimes leaving just a thin thread holding the upper part of the cane still attached but hanging down totally upside down. And I've often seen long, often not so shallow, chewing cuts into the cane, going down or up the cane from somewhere in midcane. Usually, but not always, this results in the cane turning totally black throughout that cane area, necessitating that that dead cane be cut off and sealed. And if I didn't seal the ends of any sizable cut cane, that cane would become black fairly quickly and have to be cut again and sealed. Lots and lots of that happening here, starting in April and going on well into the fall. Until the start of Rose Rosette Disease here, this was by far the #1 problem for our roses--with blackspot, cercospora or anything else not even coming close. My theory is that because our yard has lots of woods and also some pretty low damp areas (especially last year when we had an unusual amount of steady rain throughout the summer instead of drought) it has or had conditions especially liked by sawflies. >I even found an article with the exact picture... I don't think I remember ours being curled around, though some might have done that and I was just focused on the straight kind. Using photographs, I've seen many, many straight ones climbing canes and on stems. They are hard to notice with the naked eye, but enlarging pictures on the computer screen works wonders. I don't have pictures of the undersides of leaves, but for those I turned over, I could notice them with the naked eye better... and there were a lot of those there too. == >I've used iron phosphate products for slugs and snails and it works, but I don't think it's effective for the sawfly larvae. Thanks for your information, Hoovb. Oh, well! We already do have the product, so we'll give it a try anyway, hoping that our varieties are a bit different than yours. Grasping at straws here, I know... The roses I started trying the product out with a couple of weeks ago have already succumbed to RRD, though, so I've no idea thus far on whether there's any chance that it might work here. Your post inspired me to actually read the label (novel idea!) and I did not see any of the specific types of slugs mentioned there that I could find in one of my books as some of the sawfly slug varieties that can affect roses, so your experience might well predict ours too. On the optimistic side, though, it does say that those particular varieties listed aren't the only kinds of slugs it will work with, and mentions also that it's effective for slugs on blueberries and apple trees (plants with some relationship to roses, I think). Anyway, we'll see... assuming that by the time RRD is finished with us here we have some roses left to try the product on. Oh, I did read one other interesting thing: if you don't want to pick each and every one off by hand--no chance!--one of my books says that a strong spray with the hose will work. I don't know what percentage will have the strength to climb back up, but the spray coming from the side will at least put them at some distance away from the cane (and for all our new roses in the pots, they'd have to climb the pots too). I've been mainly doing that for aphids, but it will certainly be a bonus if it helps with rose sawflies too! Best wishes, Mary

Our curled rose slugs need to read this info because they are here in our garden from May until frosts... I had them id-ed at Penn State University a few years back... We have regular rose slugs also but there only here for about 4-6 weeks or so... This post was edited by jim1961 on Thu, Sep 26, 13 at 22:48

They've decimated the leaves on almost all my roses :( and I'm really good about checking them. I was wondering if anyone has tried laying plastic down under their roses to stop the cycle? I assume they can only pupate in soil? I wonder if pot grown roses have fewer problems with this as thiere's usually a hard surface underneath. I had read there's something to put on the soil that prevents them hatching; does anyone use this? While mainly cosmetic, I feel it's stressful for my new bands that rely on so few leaves for sustenance.

P TW, if this helps any, I now have 3 different types. There is the regular sawfly that comes in late spring/early summer. That one is a once a season pest. Then a good 3 or 4 years ago the bristly rose slug came to stay. It has repeated generations. Last but not least I have the curled rose slug. This one is fond of the buds. The paper wasps here usually do a good job of eating them so it’s not so bad I guess.