Aphid Prevention | Garden Pest Control

Are you an avid gardener? Have you thought about garden pest control? If you enjoy tending to flowers, then you know that for a truly glorious landscape, roses are in order. Their beauty, their heady aroma, the romance that they symbolize… clearly, nothing beats roses for chutzpah.

They definitely make you work for it, too, being among the most difficult plants to grow and maintain. This high maintenance quality is brought about by their universal allure. It certainly seems that humans don’t have a monopoly on appreciation for these lovely blooms; the bugs are drawn to them, too.

When bugs were mentioned, did you imagine bees and butterflies flitting about the flowers? While they may very well love roses, there are other insects, including destructive ones, that also insist on subjecting rose plants to their presence. Some of these unwelcome bugs are aphids.

You can hear gardeners, both amateur and professional, complaining about this garden pest. One thing’s for sure: Nobody wants aphids in their garden, but there’s no escaping these bugs.

Aphids and Roses

Are aphids bad for roses? The answer is, yes; aphids are always bad news to plants. Roses are, like many plants, prone to an infestation of aphids. Notwithstanding that, there are many gardeners who have been successful in maintaining vigorous plants that produce lots of blooms with little to no use of pesticides.

Did you know that there are different aphid species out there? The ones you get largely depend on where you are in California. There are rose aphids, potato aphids, cotton aphids, etc. No matter what kind you have on your plants, you can bet that they would be feasting on the tender buds and shoots which bear the kind of fresh, rapidly growing tissue they favor.

What the Experts Say

Now, the experts say that low to moderate levels of aphids won’t actually do much damage to your plants, which makes you repeat the question, “Are aphids bad for roses?” The answer would still be “yes”. The fact that this garden pest is present should alarm you because if not discouraged, they would happily increase their population. High levels of aphids would wreak havoc among your plants. The things secrete alarming amounts of honeydew, which lead to the growth of sooty mold, which, in turn, blackens leaves. Of course, there’s also the matter of their handiwork on buds and flowers, which leave their loveliness distorted, if not altogether destroyed.

Aphids are most troublesome in the spring. Come summertime, the heat reduces their numbers. It’s not only the heat, either. Lots of beetles and flies number among the natural enemies of aphids. The minute creatures do find an ally in the ants who want to keep them around for their honeydew, which protects them against the natural threats to them. To naturally control the number of the aphids, you may want to keep the ants away while releasing the right beetles in the correct manner.

Would you even know how to begin? It’s tedious having to deal with the threat of aphids in your garden, so it would be prudent to simply get pest control experts on the case. With their help, you can enjoy your very own healthy and gorgeously blooming roses.