...and another picture with the leaves on the bush. This is upsetting...:(

Severe, that looks like sawfly damage. If you turn the leaves you will see the little green warms that are eating the leaves. Last year they attacked my roses! If you wash the leaves with a strong spray of water you should vê able to dislodge some of them... keep doing it every 2/3 days

I fold the leaf over the larvae and squish. :)

Gosh I hate them 😂😂 I did the horticultural oil in February and I’m watching very close to see if I spot any leaves with holes in it... this year they will not eat my babies!!

I will look carefully tomorrow but I didn't see any bugs. If it is anthracnose, then do I just spray like I do for BS?

Thank you, Carol! I’m glad to hear it’s just a bug and not anthracnose. I understand the latter is harder to deal with and worse than BS. I will check!

I get them every spring, sawfly and my eyesight is so poor that I can rarely spot them . It seems like it is a spring infestation, though I could be wrong. I wisj I could find the little buggars more easily

I get them also and can never find them. I just avert my eyes!

Yep - that's what it is. I did see one tiny green larvae but most leaves were perfectly clean - nothing was there. so nothing to squish. It's hard to get them.

But yes, they are making large holes in the leaves. I have no idea how to deal with them because they are obviously hiding.

I can commiserate, sawfly larvae and leafcutter bees made a mess of Munstead Wood last year.

I went out there and got a few, but really, it's a losing battle. With more than a few roses, there will be too many leaves to check. Do they eventually go away on their own, like the Japanese Beetles?

Yeah I think they're a spring/early summer thing.

So do I just kind of wait for them to go away and try to squish the occasional ones I can get?

Personally I don't really squish, so I just kind of wait for them to be done and then pick off the leaves that bother me most. That's me though, I can see why it would really bother people aesthetically.

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b),

Any particular reason why you don't squish them? Is it because they are not considered that harmful, time considerations, or any organic/ethical reservations?

For me it's a time issue. It would be very tedious to get through every leaf of every rose to squish everything. Not that I saw many larvae, but plenty of holes - which means they are hiding somewhere.

Otherwise, if I squish one one here and there, I am not sure how much difference it would make.

@Artist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA It's just that I feel bad about it, I try not to kill anything in the garden. I'm definitely not 100% great at it because when I'm processing veggies I don't have time to pick off 100 caterpillars in the kale every time I harvest a plant, so they get rinsed down the drain 🤷‍♀️ But if the bug or creature is not directly in my way of trying to eat something from the garden, I try to let it stay and hope that a good ecosystem in my garden will keep things reasonably in check. Surely my garden will never win any sort of awards but I enjoy it more when I'm not obsessing over trying to get it perfect, something I have to remind myself of frequently.

And I can totally see how that would be a time issue for you and many on here who have so many roses!

Thank you, magpie. I know this is very ...um, anthropocentric, but if I could get them all so they will leave my pretties alone, I would - and would not feel bad one little bit :).

I have a bird feeder and birdbath and I wish I could find more ladybugs somewhere so I can spread them in the garden as I did a couple of years ago when they were giving them away at Pikes. But I can't even see how birds can get to those larvae as they seem to hide so well under leaves.

I know all living creatures have a purpose, but not in my surroundings LOL.

When it comes to cockroaches, for example, I can't put it in words how much of a 'hater' I am.

Name the worst thing one can do to them - I'll do it with a smile on my face. LOL

Well I'm not trying to claim I would let something like a cockroach or a tick get away lol. Those are toast if I see them.

I spray with spinosad which is approved for "organic use." (Although I still suit and mask up.)

I tried for several years to let them go and let my garden "balance" out hoping they'd bring in what ever eats them. It sort of did--but I'm even less of a fan of wasps which are their natural predator and that barely made a dent in the problem. And while a little damage is not particularly harmful I had two huge New Dawns losing all their leaves shortly after the flush--which may be why I had such a poor rebloom later in the summer. Manually squishing them off of a New Dawn involves a lot of blood. No thanks.

I have found a couple back to back sprays a week or two apart does wonders. You just have to make sure you are really getting into the bush and getting the backs of the leaves wet with spray. It is the only spraying I do, and while I don't like it there are a lot worse thing.

Severe, that’s how I feel about slugs and snails!

On smaller potted plants I hold the leaves up to light And can easily see shadow on the under side where the little devils reside. Even the small ones are easily seen this way and then I just flip them off. no squishing necessary and they don't climb back. Severe, they pupate in the soil so if you cover the it with landscape fabric or something it will keep them from re infecting The pot. I know you grow many other plants in your pots so that might not be possible, but this has helped a lot for me. Mine seem to affect them all summer long all some people have a type that just infects once. For me, it is more than an aesthetic nuisance as on my small cuttings it will so enervate the plants that they can die since they have no more Leaf area for photosynthesis.