Hello,

I have a Mini Rose bush that is doing wonderfully right now, but recently I noticed some white dots (they looked black in the shade on the underside of the leaf, but are white in the light) on the leaves of the plant; I tried to scrape some off and they crushed into a kind of green goo. This seems to me to be some kind of egg, but I'm unsure what it would be. There's no noticeable bugs on any of my plants, let alone my Miniroses, so I'm unsure as to what it would be, or how to clean them off. It's also seems important for me to note that there doesn't seem to be any of these things on any of the plants near to the rose, either.
Any information about this would be great, thank you.

I think you are about to have a major outbreak of aphids.

DaisyI said:

I think you are about to have a major outbreak of aphids.

Hmm, I will try some anti-aphid measures then and see if my problem goes away. Thanks!

Hello everyone,

Just an update: I guess some of these little suckers went unnoticed and hatched. They're tiny so they're really hard to actually figure out what they are, but it seems like they are Spider Mites. It's hard to get a good picture since they're so small, but I tried my best (they're on the bottom of the flower):



If anyone has any better identification skills, please correct me!! The fact that they're very tiny and most of what I saw today/yesterday were mainly on the underside of the leaves really leads me to believe they are spider mites.

Spider mites are red and leave tell tail webs behind. Still aphids.

DaisyI said:Spider mites are red and leave tell tail webs behind. Still aphids.

Can Aphids walk on thin air? I'm seeing some of these little critters cross across from lower on the flower to the top of a flower bud small distances, which makes me think they're walking on a small, imperceptible web.

@ALiteralPlate ...

to NGA ...

If your climate is humid, you probably don't have spider mites. They love a hot, dry climate.

There are many, many species of aphids. Some have wings; they can be different colors, etc.

I just wash them off with plain water for my roses. I don't bother to purchase an insecticide. However, I've been told by another NGA member, that sometimes, they move too fast to be just washed off with water. Guess it depends on the bug.

Aphids usually go for new growth.

If you don't use an insecticide, the predators will show up. The aphid population does have to build up enough so that the good bugs won't starve, so putting up with a little damage isn't all that bad.

That's my point of view. Others go for the bug spray right away.