zsarose
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2017 6:26 pm
Location: Central Jersey

Discolored Rose Buds

My roses are just beginning to bloom and almost all of their new buds are black/brown on the outside. I haven't seen a single bug on either of them and their leaves are a bright healthy green. Any thoughts on the issue?? Not sure if this will help but they are not planted in the ground, they're in pots. Enclosing some photos for reference. Please help! :( They're too pretty to look like this!
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imafan26
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Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It looks like it has been chewed by a beetle. Rose beetles, Japanese beetles, and chaffers are the most common ones. April -July is when beetles emerge and cause the most damage. Systemic rose care will stop that. Other than that, for night feeding beetles, you can shine a floodlight or lamp post on the plants from dusk to 10 p.m. and use a reflective mulch to disrupt their feeding cycle. My roses are planted near a streetlight so I don't have a problem with beetles.

Plant four o'clocks nearby, they will lure the beetles away and plant garlic, or chives under the roses to help disquise them from the predators.

This is where mulch can be a bad thing, beetle larvae will be in the mulch so stir it up and pull out any grubs and eggs you see. Beetles will hide in the mulch during the daytime. Another trick is to use light to lure beetles away. You would set up a lure station using a solar pathway light and place a pan of water with some soap in it under the light. Bright light deters beetles, but low light will actually attract them.

Beetle traps do work but the trick is to lure them away from the plants. You want to place the trap 30 ft or on the farthest corner from the plants you want to protect. It will also lure beetles from the neighboring yards. You could give the traps to the neighbors then the beetles will head for their yard instead. While traps do trap a lot of beetles, it also attracts more beetles from the surrounding area. Not all of them end up in the trap so it can be self defeating.



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