I continue to spray, but not like during show season. In fact I kind of spot sprayed this morning with Erase as PM was starting to show on Crystalline, Hot Princess, Mavrik and Raspberry Swirls. I know in my inland area PM supposedly is not a problem, but we've had a marine layer come in every night for a couple of weeks, some mornings the fog was like soup.

Must be "Rose Heaven" for all of you in Southern California. Spraying during the summer in Alabama? I could spray every single day and still have some signs of disease and insects. The Japanese beetles have just arrived. Hey ! Maybe they can be trained to eat only the leaves that have blackspot. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

I haven't sprayed in 3 weeks, except last week I spot sprayed just the buds of the HTs with Orthene so that I would have some clean blooms to take to our exhibiting seminar. Other than that, I do not plan to spray over the summer. My roses have no mildew or any other disease at all right now, but the thrips and spider mites are beginning to sneak in. The spider mites will disappear now that I've stopped using Orthene on the entire bush, and we are Water Wanding several times a week. The thrips will have their way unless I get up enough energy to spot spray the buds again. But why? There aren't any rose shows over the summer, so who cares what the blooms look like. I will use most of my energy "building the bush" over the summer, by applying a slow-release fertilizer and keeping them watered well. Plus some organics like Gromulch. Only very light deadheading, if at all. Also will apply Preen to prevent weeds. We will cut back for the fall rose shows at the end of August, so I suppose I will begin spraying again around mid-September.

The only thing I spray here in the desert during the summer is WATER for the mites (the ole wand gets a good workout this time of year :o) ). IF they are really agressive I break out the Floramite and knock Âem down big time. Other than the leaf cutter bees, all the other critters or maladies can't handle the heat.

hmmm.... you must be referring to the southern CA exhibitors, as if I didn't spray in the summer, there would be no roses or at least none worthy of exhibiting this fall! It gets hot and humid in the summer here... blackspot, spider mite and Japanese beetle heaven.

Down here in Florida we spray once a week --- all year long ....

Elaine, not all of us. I'm was every two weeks when we had a hot dry spell but in the last couple of weeks the rains have started and so has the BS. I'm now going back to the 10 days or two weeks schedule. Suzanne to answer your question, yep, still spraying. No rest for the weary.

We can't get by without spraying over the summer. The spider mites would defoliate the bushes, if the blackspot didn't do it first! At the moment we are blackspot free but the nightly thunderstorms that have started now will sure cause a blackspot outbreak if we don't keep up with the spraying. Ray is right....no rest for the weary!

Could always be worse. This was from a few months ago and just happy to see any green

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