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creepy crawly things - rose
Flora rosa
Posts: 262
I've just watered my rose and there's all these tiny crawly things .... tiny mms only but all came to the top and started to wiggle around. the rose has blacks pot and is almost denuded of leaves. I feel like giving up tbh !!!! any help greatly appreciated before I resort to drowning it in jeyes fluid. also , and these may be to blame , the rose heads are just dropping off , it seems that someone has come along in the night and cut them off as it's such a clean straight cut but buds and heads on the floor. hope someone can help me out
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These look like they could be the larvae of sciarid flies or fungus gnats - the little black flies that hover around fruit bowls - which will do no damage to your rose. They do damage the roots of seedlings in pots in the greenhouse - especially cacti - but in the garden they are harmless. They will definitely not have decapitated your rose either - that sounds like human activity as the cuts are so straight. Please do not use Jeyes Fluid unless you want to kill everything in your soil. The rose needs a spray against the blackspot and a good feed to boost it. Sadly some roses are prone to this disease.
thanks LB4 can live with that ! (no won't use jeyes fluid , not least cos have put vine weevil nematodes in there - just threatening it , get it to behave am fed up with it!) so I may actually succumb to getting rose clear tho ...... it can have one more year and if doesn't get better , it may have to go
You have to be patient with blackspot and insects - one spray won't get rid of them. Roseclear will kill the insects for about 2 weeks, while blackspot will need repeat treatments; you also need to clear any leaves from the ground, as they'll just re-infect your rose. The best thing you can do for the rose is keep it fed and watered to make it a stronger plant, although insects will always be attracted to young growth and flower buds and, as Ladybird says, some roses are more prone to blackspot than others.
I've succumbed to rose clear, so we'll see how it goes but everyday there's been a flower head on the floor in the morning! !!!
this one this morning is a freshly opened bloom and I don't know if you can see from the picture but seems to be a straight cut ! could there be any other explanation than human interference as I really don't want to believe that a neighbour could do such a thing ! (altho there is a very strange boy next door and only a gate between us - golly I sincerely hope not him)
I've also had stems cut off perfectly cleanly, looks like scissors in places where neighbours can't reach and my husband certainly wouldn't do any secret gardening.
It could be cutworm, that is the only thing I can think of who could do this.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=910
thaks lou I'll keep my eyes open for these
There is a natural 'junction' on each rose stem which allows the dead flower to detach naturally. However, a pigeon or other large bird flapping about can easily detach them at that point (the damn things are constantly chasing each other during mating rituals around my flower beds.) A stressed rose will also drop buds and flowers which will detach at the same 'junction'.
thanks bob , it's very stressed so may be that !