A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 holes on rose leaves

I just realized what was eating holes in my rose leaves...tiny worms/caterpillars. any suggestions?

Garlic spray is said to repel caterpillars.
There is a dust called Dipel. It contains bacillus thuringiensis (sp?)which is a biological caterpillar control. I think it's a bacteria that gets inside their gut when they ingest it and kills them or some such thing.
Prevention being better than cure, caterpillars are preyed upon by birds, spiders, wasps, assassin bugs, etc. A bit of a wild area where small birds, wasps and stuff can live is a great way to keep insect pests down. Just having a birdbath which is always full and clean will help.

Besides the Dipel dust, (good spelling there, Longy! ), there is a liwuid form, Thuricide. I don't think Lowe's or WM have it, but a nursery should.
If the pyrethrin has no other chemicals, it's not toxic to birds or pets unless they got a huge dose, but it does kill bees and things.
Thuricide is destroyed by sunlight, so spray in the evening for best results.

I am so sorry all. I rechecked the bottle to check for other chemicals in it and its permethrin...not pyrethrin. it has.50 percent and "other ingredients"99.50percent but doesn't list other chemicals.

I'll probably try the garlic.
any other suggestions will help too.

THANK YOU ALL!

Yeah, permethrin is a dangerous chemical. It can kill cats, for one thing (oddly it's safe to use on dogs.) There are some good uses for permethrin, but I avoid it altogether. The Bt is great because it is a livng organism, like botulism is to humans, in a way. It only kills catterpillars.
One thing about those little catterpillars, if you could pick them off, or however you get rid of them, they may not have a second generation. Some catterpillars don't.
I think that Safer's Insecticidal Soap may work on catterpillars, but I'd have to read the label to be sure.
Will you let us know what you try and how it works?

Hello, I new to this forum. I have to nice roses plants and the red roses are beautiful but the leaves are getting small white things and holes on it, I look under the leaves and I found very tiny green worms. I need help killing this worms b4 they kill the plants. I called the garden center and they recommended spray called BTK, I don't want to use harmful toxic chemicals. Thank you for the advise you can give me.
Blanca