This year I have been using clearys 336 with some sea weed extract, hb101,and a little montys joy juice..... This is working wonders for powdery mildew but not really doing anything against rust and black spot....

water? LOL!!! I don't spray unless I have to.

I don't spray either. If I see curculio weevils on the roses, I zap them with Raid flying insect spray. Besides, I have emphysema, so I don't want to be around vile-smelling chemicals, and I don't trust anyone else to spray for me because I'm scared they won't be careful enough around the cats.

Zuzu you have emphysema? when did that happen? Where have I been. You seemed healthy as a horse at the round up...

I can not not not stand powdery mildew so yes I spray.....

I was diagnosed a few months after the roundup, as soon as I got back from Florida. It's fine. I'm on a Qvar regimen and it's working really well so far. I'm still healthy as a horse.

We don't get powdery mildew here, except on old ramblers, which have no resistance to anything whatsoever. I'm gradually replacing all of my Dorothy Perkins ramblers with Super Dorothy, which looks just like Dorothy Perkins but never gets mildewed and reblooms constantly, unlike Dorothy Perkins, which blooms only once a year.

Wow who is choping down your dorthy perkins? Its a monster from the pictures I have seen.

Thank goodness the regimen is doing well for you...... I would hate to think you wouldnt be able to enjoy everything you love to do...

Chopping down monsters is like eating an elephant -- you do it bit by bit.

I'm enjoying the hell out of everything I do. Don't worry. I do notice that I have to go inside if any of my nearby neighbors use their fireplaces, but that might bother me anyway. My sense of smell seems to get keener every year.

When I move up there, I'll save your keen senses by taking the lilacs off your hands. And anything else you find too strong.

You're the most selfless person imaginable. You can take the mock orange, the lemon balm, and the clematis armandii too.

I'll do what what I can to relieve your discomfort.

I use half strength dilute neems oil with a spoon of baking soda and a squirt of Dawn dish soap. It helps with aphids, but I am not sure if it helps black spot. I still had some last year, but less than the year before when I didn't spray. I always try fertilizer/sprays./whatever half strength and use them more often if needed. A couple of roses need something stronger this year.

Hope you continue to feel well, zuzu. I have asthma, triggered by mold or cigarette smoke, so I am also very careful with sprays. I majored in Chemical Engineering at Cornell, so I always research everything up before using it.

I wish I could grow lemon balm. I managed to get a few sad sprigs in a pot last year, but they didn't thrive.

I know AZ is not the place to test sprays that fight fungus, but I was surprised at how effective Green Cure (potassium bicarbonate) as a dip was on young roses with cercospora that rode in on new plants. So far except for that, I've spotted no spots of fungus of any kind on my roses.

Other sprays include Freeze-Pruf to prevent freeze damage - (which works especially well in the summer !), a magic repellant spray whose name I totally forget to stop furry nibblers from taking all the new foliage off roses, and Messenger to stimulate growth - once the foliage is old enough not to be very threatened by small animals.

Just read a book on growing big tomatoes and one champion grower advocates spraying with powdered milk. That made sense to me in context with another piece I read recently about cultivating friendly bacteria that gobble up or out-compete bad ones and fungi. It also acts as a foliar source for minerals for the tomatoes. Thinking of trying it on roses, too.

I tried powdered milk a few times last year. It left blotches on the leaves. Perhaps if you sprayed only the undersides or made it more dilute it would work better. I believe Martha Stewart had instructions on her web site. A friend swears by milk sprays and cornmeal scattered on the ground under her roses. Her garden had an air of "eu de baby vomit", I suspect it was the milk. Her roses still had blackspot and the corn meal looked odd. I decided to use the powdered milk for cappuccino foam instead.

I couldn't find freeze pruf in the local stores, but may try to mail order it.

I read recently about someone making their own dormant oil spray using orange rinds soaked in water. Next time I have oranges, I may try it. It would smell much better than sour milk.

EEEYEEEWWW~!!!! "Eu de Baby Vomit"!!! (of course, spoken like Pepe le Pew)

And, making orange oil is pretty easy. What I do is put a ton of orange peels (10+ oranges) into a large stock pot full of water. Throw in a cinnamon stick and turn onto low low low. I've also done this in the crockpot too. After about 2-3 hours, the water's pretty evaporated out PLUS the house smells wonderful. You could also buy orange oil at health food places, but I like making my own.

Thanks, that sounds really easy. I guess you could use lemon or lime also, if you have it.