Companion planting for a rose garden?

18 Jun '06 5:23 pm

Hi everybody,

I'm fairly new to gardening, but here's something I just tried on my new iceberg climbing rose (thanks for the recomendation, Moosey!) that has worked great and spread to help the rest of my garden. Buy some ladybugs. I know this sounds a little crazy (or is that morbid?) Smile

I bought 100 of them for about $3 so this isn't expensive if it doesn't work for you. Anyways, in the evening "sprinkle" the bugs over any plants that are covered with aphids, the ladybugs will be a little bit disoriented at first but then sit down & watch a war break out. They will eat all your aphids. And they will stick around & keep eating until you no longer have an aphid problem-it's awesome. Another thing is ants-they'll eat aphids too, I have a lot of ants because I have a lot of peonies & these attract ants so maybe planting peonies by roses would work too...hmm...I might have to try that! Very Happy

I've also heard that praying mantis will work, but I haven't tried these yet.

19 Jun '06 6:50 am

Aphid VS Ladybug wars / War of the Roses - Now thats my kind of gardening! Keep us posted Lacy Smile

14 Jul '06 4:35 pm

so...how's everyone doing with the bugs???? Sigh Confused

My ladybugs don't like the heat...it was between 80 & 90 degrees (F) for a few weeks and they've gone into hiding...the aphids seem to like the heat though and are multiplying. UG. the good news-they are not on the rose-the bad news? My poor lupine has lost all of it's flowers and 1/2 of it's stems. I've got to think up a new solution. I read that you can mix cayanne pepper with water & a mild soap in a spray bottle & spray it on-I'm going to try that tomorrow-has anyone tried this?? I've had a lot of ambition this summer and I've only gotten about 1/4 of my projects done...I'm feeling slow & lazy in the heat-I'll have to get up enough energy to try the pepper spray. Let me know if anyone's had success with this.

18 Jul '06 5:17 pm

I dont know about the cayenne pepper but I have used insecticidal soap may times and it does work with aphids, but some plants seem very sensitive to soap. The roses do fine with it but I have some clematis as companion plants fo my climbing roses and it drys them out so bad that the leaves die. So if you have any companion plants be careful. Try testing a small area of the companion plant with your spray mix first and see what the reaction is. At any rate spraying is risky the hotter it gets.
I have nepeta as a companion plant. It's 102 degrees F (about 40 degrees C) and its doing well. So is my Russaian sage and my Agastache. The daylilies seem to do well too, with enough water. But heat is tough on everything else! I will be glad for August.

16 Mar '08 7:30 am

*bump*

...revisiting, just incase aphids are a problem atm, as they are here! Confused

Companion planting for a rose garden?

Creating an "Aphid War"

War of the Roses

Aphids