Scrapbook image

Your scrapbook

Forgotten your details?

Enter your email address and we'll send your username and password to you

London

  • FairToday
    7°C/20°C
  • Partly CloudyTomorrow
    12°C/22°C
  • See Gardeners'
    7-day forecast

Our Gardeners' 7-day forecast warns you of changing weather conditions (including frost, high wind and drought) and suggests actions to take to protect your plants.

Advertisement

Problem solving

Rose foliage rolled up by sawfly

Symptoms

Young rose leaves nearest the bud curl up overnight; after a week, small green caterpillars hatch and start to strip the leaves.

Find it on: roses

Time to act: spring, summer

Rose leaf rolling sawfly

The rose leaf rolling sawfly injects a chemical into young rose leaves to cause them to curl protectively around her eggs. Within a week the eggs hatch into green caterpillars that start to eat their home. In mid-summer, leaving behind skeletonised foliage, they crawl down into the soil to overwinter.

Solution

Organic

When small numbers of leaves are affected, remove and destroy the tubular foliage. With large numbers of leaves, they are best left or the rose will suffer. In winter, carefully fork over the soil around the base of the rose to expose the larvae to hungry birds, but don't damage the roots.

Chemical

In the case of large infestations, try spraying with thiacloprid insecticide, but there's no guarantee that it'll reach the well-protected larvae tucked up inside the leaf tubes.

Advertiser Links

Subscribe to the magazine

October edition of Gardeners' World Magazine

In October...
The October issue is on sale from 30 September. Subscribe today and receive the next three issues of Gardeners' World magazine for just £1.

The UK's number 1 gardening magazine

TV & Radio

Television icon

What's on this week

Find out what gardening programmes are on TV and radio this week. And read more about the Gardeners' World programme.

Offer

Planter

Buy six agapanthus plants for £12.98.

BBC Magazines

© BBC Magazines Ltd. BBC Worldwide Ltd.

The BBC Gardeners' World Magazine word mark and logo are trademarks of BBC Worldwide Ltd.

BBC Magazines is owned by the BBC and our profits are returned to the BBC for the benefit of the licence-fee payer.