Here it is, second only to the Japanese beetle for destroying my roses. The little worm which I assume is a larvae of something eats the flower buds while they are very small. Sometimes I will lose more than half the buds on a good size shrub rose. HELP!
And here it is all by itself. Has anyone else had this very rude little visitor.
rose slug, larvae of the sawfly. dust the roses with diatomateous earth.
I looked up rose slug and it says they damage the leaves. But my pest doesn't bother the leaves at all as far as I can tell, only the flower buds. If it is rose slug, why is it eating the buds and not the leaves? ( I'm going to take a closer look to see if I can find any damage to the leaves.)
Someone else suggested rose midge and while the damage looks like what I have, the info I found says the midge larvae is white maggot-like and only about 1.8 mm long. Mine are way bigger than that, some reach a centimeter and they are pale greenish.
I have been searching and searching and can find nothing that perfectly matches my pest.
I've just been outside looking at my roses. I did not find any leaf damage but lots more devoured buds with the usual black droppings all around them. And here's another picture of the offending critter. It's brown now. I assume this means it is older, getting closer to pupating.
Well, Chris....now you have my curiosity going. I hope you will let it pupate and when it emerges tell us what it is. lol Do you have a local cooperative extension service with a horticulturist on staff? Maybe you could shoot them a photo.
whatever kind of rose slug, maggot, sawfly larvae, beetle larvae it is, the d.e. will kill it and this is not the kind of thing that is going to turn into a beautiful butterfly. lol
Tracks,
I've never heard of dusting the plants with it, only using in the soil for grub worms, etc. Do you just dust like using a powder form of a pesticide (sevin)? Does it work on slugs?
it works on any soft bodied thing. i have a chapin hand duster but you can just throw it on too.
Aphids?
diatomaceous earth is just finely ground up hard-shelled sea life, powdered almost. it cuts up any soft bodied bug that crawls on it but is harmless to pets and people unless you purposely inhale a handfull. you have to re-apply if it gets wet. amazon has some good deals on it from greensense. i think lowes carries it now too. garden grade, not pool grade.
Oh, did I give the impression I was going to let it pupate? Uhhh, actually I washed it down the drain. I truly feel bad when I kill anything but my husband who mastered in entomology keeps telling me insects have no pain sensors so at least I'm not hurting them.
We use DM on hard bodied insects too, as it scratches the exoskeleton down.
Chris, I'm glad to hear they have no pain sensors since I've killed over 100 grub worms so far this spring. Bleck!
Does the diatomaceous earth not also kill earthworms? gosh, I wouldn't want to throw out the baby with the bath water. This gets complicated doesn't it? lol
I found it! Last night I was talking about my problem larvae with my husband. As we were talking, I suddenly remembered that I did put one of these guys in a jar a few years back and it did indeed pupate and when it metamorphosed my husband identified it as a plume moth. I had completely forgotten all this until last night. So I did an internet search for "plume moths roses" and what did I find?
"Gardening forums: Roses: old rose under attack" (dave's garden.com)
There I find a link to the University of Wisconsin entomology department which has a perfect picture and description of my little pest, the larvae of a plume moth that "burrows into rose buds". It says to use Sevin but I'm going to try some of your organic suggestions.
According to the UW site this is not a serious pest but will reduce flowering. I'll say it does.
So thanks to Dave's garden I have my answer and may none of you ever see this pesky little critter on your roses.
Congrats! Good detective work!
Well, I still don't know precisely which plume moth it is but I intend to find out. I think maybe I am getting obsessive about it.
inquisitiveness is a sign of intelligence...........so obsessively tracking the source of your rose eaters shows you are brilliant!
DM does kill earthworms as well, so you may want to think about that before you just dust everything.
