Saw Flies
Heather Michaels
Posts: 328
Hello everyone, I need some advice please. The leaves on my rose bushes are being completely eaten away by a family of saw fly larvae. Can you please tell me the best thing to do to try and get rid of them before they do any more damage. I have some beautiful rose heads right now surrounded by absolutely no greenery at all, just an empty vein that the leaf used to attach to! Thank you
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I just pick them off and throw them on the lawn for the birds
In the sticks near Peterborough
Hi Sara 4, sorry for the late response. Yes I can see the larvae but in fairness you have to look closely to see them, they're not too obvious unless you're up close and personal! They just look like very small green caterpillars. Nothing like that on your rose bushes? I have some odd holes in a few leaves but they seem to like on patch in particular and have now eaten their way through most of them and up until yesterday it was only one rosebush. This morning I see that the little demons have started on another one! I'm sure I can pick them off (with gloves of course, yucky little things lol) but I was hoping for a more definitive solution than that. I do however remember watching the Victorian Farm a while back and there was a very old fashioned remedy for dealing with saw flies so I'm going to hunt it out and see if it does work. I'll let you know what it is, can't hurt to try it and see if it helps.
grow solomans seal i have these growing near roses. the sawfly caterpillers eat it not my roses.
I've had sawflies everywher this year, on the Cucumber plants, Zonal Geraniums, Calendula, just about everything has had them. I squish them when I see them but they are very difficult to see.
Soapy water does seem to help with the sawflies/larvae but not completely eliminate them, looks like its a bit of a battle to get rid of them! And as ladygardener2 says, they don't just like you're roses. Grrr! I also have holes in a lot of my plants (and some of my herbs) and they I'm sure aren't sawflies so I'm looking for a different culprint for those, and as you Sara 4, they shall remain invisible!
Really sorry for the appaling grammar and typo's there! As usual, I'm thinking way too far ahead of myself and my fingers are falling over themselves!