How to Control Sawflies on Roses

SHARE THIS POST OR PIN IT FOR LATER!

*This post may contain affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my small business…at no extra cost to yourself!

I have been wanting to add roses to our landscaping for so long and finally bought two David Austin Roses last year to climb the sides of our shed. I absolutely love them, they've grown so well in the short amount of time that we've had them, and the blooms smell so amazing. As much as I love the roses, so also do the sawfly larvae that are currently eating the leaves into oblivion.

I started noticing transparent tan blotches on the rose plant leaves about a month ago. It had been really rainy, so I thought maybe that was the issue. Hindsight tells me I should have sprayed them right then and there with an INSECTICIDAL SOAP OR FUNGICIDE, but I didn't. Then I started to notice holes being eaten all over the leaves. Ugh! My beautiful rose bushes, just hitting their stride, were/are literally being eaten alive. After doing a bit of research on a local gardening page, I realized my roses are struggling with sawfly larvae. Unfortunately, I should have treated with a pre-emergent, as the larvae live in the dirt over winter and come out in the spring, ready to munch on the roses. I didn't know about this issue prior to the growing season, so I will use ROSE RX SYSTEMIC DRENCH this fall when the pollinators are done and next year before they start.

Since I'm late to the game this year, I'm going to start with BONIDE SYSTEMIC GRANULES. They get watered into the roots of the plant and will work their way through stems and leaves to kill the sawfly larvae as they eat. They are designed to have a minimized effect on pollinators. I'm honestly still on the fence about this part. I don't want to hurt the bees and the sawflies aren't killing my roses...they're just making them ugly for the growing season.

Until I fully decide whether or not I'm going to use the systemic granules, I am going to trim off as much of the damaged leaves that I can-this is going to be almost entire stems at this point. You want to allow the plant to put all of its energy into creating new, healthy growth. Whenever you prune any plant, you want to make sure you're using clean tools. Do as I say, not as I do with this... I'm not always the best, but with my roses, I'm going to be. You can clean your ROSE PRUNING SHEARS with rubbing alcohol to make sure they're at their best for your plants.

I'm not a pruning expert, so I'm not going to give you a bunch of advice. If you're good at it, I'd love to know your tricks! I just always try to get rid of anything that doesn't look green and healthy, as the plant will still try to send energy to those areas, which ends up being a waste. You want your roses to give their energy to all the beautiful, healthy blooms!

After pruning, I am treating the roses with BONIDE CAPTAIN JACK'S ROSE RX 4-IN-1 INSECT AND DISEASE CONTROL. This is a great product to have onhand for basically anything you'll run into in the garden or with your flowers during the growing season. It's safe to use on plants multiple times and works for lots of different fungi and pests. Sawfly larvae are normally found on the backsides of leaves, so they are extra hard to reach with insecticidal treatments. This is why the systemic options are the best. If you're using a spray, you'll want to try and get the product on the backs of the leaves. That being said...if you find the issue early on or you're willing to put in the time, you can pick off the larvae as a as well. I picked a few off yesterday, but it felt futile. They're tiny and there are so many leaves. I'm going to continue treating with the spray and will trim off affected leaves as needed.

\

In addition to treating the plants with insecticidal spray, I am going to be fertilizing the roses as much as I can. Ultimately, the sawfly larvae are not going to kill the roses, but they are making them really ugly. If I can keep the plants happy overall, despite having their leaves eaten, they will continue to make beautiful blooms for me. I've been using FISH FERTILIZER for the last two years and love it!! It's all natural and the plants love it. It's also something that I'm not afraid to overuse. Some products make me nervous, but the fish fertilizer is so natural...I don't have as many reservations about it.

A big part of gardening and growing flowers is learning. As long as I've been doing this, I've barely scratched the surface in terms of what there is to learn about growing plants and keeping them happy. Also, I don't think there will ever be any two years alike in terms of pests, weather, precipitation... All we can do is continue to add to our arsenal of tips and tricks and know what to look for, so we can get ahead of the issues as much as possible.

I was telling Jason the other day that the hardest part of the roses not looking so great this year is that they're a large focal point in our yard...which is still in very young stages of being fleshed out. We don't have a lot of trees or larger plants. We also have limited growing beds at this point, so any plants that we do have are a lot more obvious when they don't look their best. The only answer to this? Create more beds and add more plants! We've been working hard on this the last few years and will continue to do so. I'm hoping to get to the point where there are multiple focal points within the yard so pests on the roses don't seem like such a huge issue in the scope of the other plants that we have.

Have you dealt with sawfly larvae before? I'd love to hear any tips and tricks that you employ to treat your plants for them and to avoid them in the future!

‍