Forum home› Plants
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Best rose companions

Jason-3Jason-3 Posts: 391
in Plants
I've taken the plunge this year and ordered a fair few older rose varieties such as comte de chambord,  pierre odger and bourban queen. I want try and grow these as organically as possible with minimal spraying against rust, black spot.
I would like any suggestions that have worked for you in the deterrence of aphids, saw fly etc as these undoubtedly contribute to an unhealthy rose. I was intially thinking chives, agastache and salvia.  But all suggestions welcome

Posts

  • ButtercupdaysButtercupdays Posts: 4,546
    I grow quite a few older roses and never spray with anything. Some of them do get a little blackspot, but they cope just fine - it's part of being a survivor.
    The best defence against aphids and sawfly is a healthy ecosystem, with plenty of birds and insect predators. Aphids never last more than a week or so before something gets them and I've never seen a sawfly on my roses. :)
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    A fine choice of old roses Jason...  I do use Chives and where I have them, my roses are not troubled by anything much, but I don't have them everywhere...I should, because I like them, but aphids are not something anyone need worry about too much on strong growing roses...  and I also get sawflies on quite a few roses, maybe most,  I just pick them off, as you can tell by looking at the rolled leaves - leaf rolling sawfly... only a few buds get affected so again not something I'm going to worry about..

    More annoying to me is the invasion of pollen beetles, because of all the oilseed rape fields around here... they swarm on my roses from late June for about 3 or 4 weeks, a few arrive at the end of May too... single flowered roses are most affected...

    The pink rose on the right in this photo is 'Bourbon Queen'... [not my garden]..
    others are 'Madame Plantier' and 'Crepuscule'...



    pollen beetles on ''Secret Garden Musk Climber''...


    East Anglia, England
  • Jason-3Jason-3 Posts: 391
    Thanks for the advice people, bourbon queen looks a real stunner. She is the one that is worrying me a bit as a few reviews describe her as prone to pretty bad black spot
Sign In or Register to comment.