What kind of weevil are you talking about?
I have Otiorhynchus sulcatus (aka Black Vine Weevil/Taxus Weevil) in my garden but it goes after the foliage mainly. Went through the costly exercise of spreading nematodes last autumn and again this spring and am extremely curious to see if it is going to have any effect - hope so $$$$$!

Zuzu ... I was talking about picking buds on only those 10 roses you found the rose curculios on, not all of your roses. Good grief, that would be horrid. I agree with you completely. It's just easier to grab a bud that a bug ..

>>>Second, because the weevils always attack the gallicas and other once-blooming roses, and I certainly don't want to remove their buds.

Makes sense. Their natural food source is the once blooming species roses. I've just given them desert by having repeat blooming roses available.

I have to go for all of my roses because the curculios go for all of my roses. It's different for me.

Sharlene ... we are taking about the rose curculio weevil.

http://www.sactorose.org/ipm/8...

http://www.gardeningknowhow.co...

It used to only be found in Canada and in the far north but has moved south. The life cycle of the insect is that it is above ground for about eight weeks to eat, mate and lay eggs in the buds of roses. The damaged buds drop to the ground and the larvae go underground for the rest of their life cycle. If the gardener removes the buds containing the eggs, or doesn't allow the curculios to even get to the point where they can lay eggs in the buds, the larvae essentially are not breeding in the earth under the roses, so the adult curculios have find the rose garden. Generally, this takes about four weeks after they first emerge for them to find my garden after they have emerged under the species roses on the properties around me. So they are in my garden for half of their life cycle.

Please note ... When Baldo, the professor who wrote the article in the first link above visited my garden in the early days, told me that because I had rose cuculios, I would never have a clean flush, I almost gave up growing roses. Keeping the dang bugs from breeding in the garden was due to an epiphany. I was hand picking a rose down in the street garden and realized that the curculios were busy working on the other 99 roses in the garden. In a huff, I decided to dis-bud all of the roses in the whole garden and keep them dis-budded for the rest of their life cycle and take away their food and a place for them to lay their eggs. I have a LOT fewer roses than Zuzu ...

This method will only work for insects that have only a short life cycle above ground. Many weevils have multiple life cycles above ground.

Sharlene, I wrote a blog post about various critters I deal with in my garden, I added a few photos of thhe damage done by these. http://garden.org/blogs/entry/...

By the way, my blog was started 5 years ago when I first moved here, you can see the progress starting at the first posting, scroll to the bottom for the earlier numbered pages. You can set to 'watch' any blog, I am woefully behind posting anything new but it's usually a highlight repost of various thread posts I scatter around the forums.

Suzanne ...

Cass ... who lives in Santa Rosa told me the curculios only went for dark colored roses, another rose friend told me they only went for light colored roses, another said they only went for old garden roses. I think they only go for any rose they want to go for at any given time ... Just ask the bug

It seems like I have more insects this year than ever. However, that does make sense. We have had had more rain this year and every bug in the world seems to be more active as every plant seems to be more healthy, too.

Fun times.

That's funny Lyn, so far, I have only had them on the light roses.

Japanese beetles seem to go for some colors over others, yellow and white especially, but those are just first choices- they eat 'em all. At least they're late to emerge, so first flush is safe and once blooming OGRs are never bothered by them.

Lyn, Sue - thanks for the explanation! Haven't ever seen them here thank goodness! There are enough other pests in the garden without adding one more. The weevils we get seem to leave the blooms alone but just love to chew on the leaves.

Sue - will definitely keep an eye on your blog. Had a quick look and it is truly amazing what you have achieved.

cliftoncat said:Gladly, Sue, although in England we have no blooms as yet, so it will be a little while. It's sad, because in France we had roses on our last trip there, back in March. We'll be going back to France on 22nd, and I'm really worried that I will have missed all the irises... But at least it should be warm enough to swim!

@cliftoncat Mika - Meant to comment but somehow didn't. Hope you get to see your iris and maybe the second flush on your roses in France. Looks like you have a little dilemma - won't the first roses be blooming in England when you are in France??? Must be really difficult to time your trips to suit your blooms cycles.

gemini_sage said:Japanese beetles seem to go for some colors over others, yellow and white especially, but those are just first choices- they eat 'em all. At least they're late to emerge, so first flush is safe and once blooming OGRs are never bothered by them.

It's always something, Neal. We don't have JPs here, yet. I've heard that they do go after other plants. Dis-budding the whole garden is truly a drastic approach, but I live on a parcel of land that is a part of a watershed to the Trinity River. I just could not make myself use a drench poison, which was recommended. Oh, well.

Now, there is some pollen eating fly that is attacking the first flush. It goes after any flower with yellow pollen. ...

Also, you can see I have saw fly in the garden messing with the leaves. At least I still have roses. What in the world am I griping about ??

I've been out weeding and am taking a break. Good grief. Even the weeds are monsters this year.

No I am not complaining. I am so very glad we finally got rain ...

I planted 'Grande Dame' this morning. I actually took time to smell the one bloom that had opened on the plant and was wowed by it's fragrance. Yes. I've already clipped it off so that the plant will put it's energy into growing roots.

You're right, Sharlene, I need to sort out the timing of my trips. But of course there are always things that get in the way - our next trip has now been postponed by almost a week. I might see some late blooming irises in France, but I fear I am then likely to miss out on the main iris blooms in England. Fortunately the roses here (England) seem to keep going more or less all summer, strangely more so than those in France - possibly because of the poor soil in France combined with the very hot summers. Perhaps I should experiment with adding extra doses of fertiliser or increasing the water supply.
I'm off to Bristol tomorrow to see a sister who wants some help with her garden; I'm taking her a couple of David Austins and plan while I'm there to visit Blackmore & Langdon, who grow the most amazing delphiniums and have a sale starting on Friday... I used to think the garden here was big, but it needs to be bigger!

Mika, heat and humidity do slow the roses down considerably, probably both that and the lean soil. English summers are great for repeat bloom- looking forward to photos!

Lyn, Japanese beetles do go after several other plants, but it's kind of random from one year to the next. Some years they destroy grape vines, dahlias, cannas, callas, or hibiscus (or some combination of those plants), you just never know what will be hit hardest. Thankfully they mostly just focus on rose blooms, and only occasionally eat the leaves- I've never had a plant completely defoliated. I've never been very tempted to spray for them- sevin is one of the few that works on JBs, but I'd rather cut the blooms off than spray them with stinky toxins.

I've seen some activity from those little green caterpillars that eat little windows into the leaves. There are 3 Gruss an Aachen in that area, and the caterpillars are focused on one plant. It reminded me of a public television documentary I saw about how plants communicate with each other. One segment talked about one plant of a group being attacked by insects and it released a chemical that when detected by the surrounding plants, triggered them to produce chemicals that made them less attractive to the insects. The original plant did not have its immune response kick in- they theorized that it was sacrificing itself to give the others a fighting chance.

Mika ...

I have a neighbor with a guest visiting from Devon who thinks my garden is huge by Devon's standards and it is really quite small compared to Zuzu's or Suzanne's. My soil is not as good as the soil in either of their garden's either, yet he is amazed at how much I can grow.

I have a hunch that if he visited either of their garden's his whole concept of American gardening would change ...

I guess one's view depends upon what one is used to seeing. Good luck with your sister's garden.

>>>I've seen some activity from those little green caterpillars that eat little windows into the leaves. There are 3 Gruss an Aachen in that area, and the caterpillars are focused on one plant. It reminded me of a public television documentary I saw about how plants communicate with each other. One segment talked about one plant of a group being attacked by insects and it released a chemical that when detected by the surrounding plants, triggered them to produce chemicals that made them less attractive to the insects. The original plant did not have its immune response kick in- they theorized that it was sacrificing itself to give the others a fighting chance.

How interesting ....

Yes, those little green windows are indicators of saw fly damage.

I don't mind washing plants down with water for insect control, but more than that is just something I am not going to do. Over my rose life, so many "safe" chemicals have been re-labeled as "dangerous" and then removed from the market because they have been determined to be more than just "dangerous" but are now "lethal", I've decided that I am simply NOT going to bother messing with Mother Nature beyond the minimum of removing buds, washing plants or companion planting. The rest is up to Her.

Ooops ... forgot a quote

Yep, same here on the chemicals- its just not worth it to me, too many risks. I've always liked touching plants and blooms too, its almost a compulsion, LOL.

Plant petting!

gemini_sage said:Yep, same here on the chemicals- its just not worth it to me, too many risks. I've always liked touching plants and blooms too, its almost a compulsion, LOL.

Oh ....... yeah...... pure bliss.... hummmmmmmmmmm

It's what you do if you cannot sing.

Actually one can do both!!

I suppose I do tend to do both