My new place has a yellow rose bush that looks, well, non too healthy and has a lot of ants and other lil bugs on it, will this harm it, how much can i trim it back, and what will rid me of the pests but not the beautiful blooms?

Hi Kebab! Sounds like you might have aphids on your roses - here's an organic website that has some remedies for it

In the meantime, as a temporary solution, you can spray the bush with a hose - give it a little blast of water to knock the ants/aphids off the leaves. (Ants will herd the aphids for their honeydew...so that's why I'm guessing they're aphids ya have)

As for trimming it back - we have about 8 rosebushes we've been battling blackspot all summer long off and on. We had to cut some of them completely down to the ground in early summer and watched them grow right back. Don't be afraid to cut back a rosebush - my mom always said the more ya cut, the better they grow - and it's true! As a rule of thumb, when you deadhead a rosebush (after the flower fades) cut it just above the first group of 5 leaves from the top of the stem. If you need to you can go all the way down to the last set of 5 leaves and it'll come back - but if ants/aphids are your only problem, I would try getting rid of them without cutting beyond general pruning - cutting won't necessarily keep them off your other good leaves!

Hope that helps!

kebab,

Mary is right and if you re that unlucky that it doesn t work well...a bb gun will !!

Thanks a bunch - will try the easy options first obviously!

got any extra bb's for me??

ok, i did it the really easy way. I went to Home Depot and they had a spray specifically for it, so, thought i would give it a bash. so far so good, all bugs have got the heck off my flowers!

working a treat so far, the bugs are staying off, and the blooms are gorgeous!

storm,

like they say round xmass time on tv:

you re gonna shoot your eye out,although sometimes i d like to have on e also