They made me shudder too, Seil, so much, I had to allow DH to do the pruning. When he found out what they were, he wanted to get out the gasoline and light a match. floridarose, I decided we'd prune it down and see what happens next year. I'm afraid they may have already hatched by the time we got them pruned. SO SICK! I guess if the plant is a goner so be it, but I have quite a few in the back and front yard. I guess I'll find out next year. Jessicabe, If they are that smart, I'm VERY afraid. I probably shouldn't have read that because I've already had bad dreams about those things. Kitty

And the aptly named mossy rose galls. And they can take over a plant. Somewhere there's a reference to their use in folk medicine (with or without the wasp inside). Here is a link that might be useful: Mossy rose galls

Hi all, this is my first post under the rose board! A little background on my plant. I have many plants in my yard, but this is my first rose bush. (Can you believe it!) this was a bag variety that I got on sale at a big box store so i wasn’t expecting much. I am pretty sure it was half dead when I bought it. Anyway. It has given me a few blooms. My question is, is this the dreaded chilli thrip? The leaves are starting to curl under and there are some brown spots. There was a crepe myrtle planted over this that I had a bad infestation of aphids and black mold and it has since been taken care of so I was wondering if the rose bush was affected by that. Thank you for any help. Also do the disease resistant varieties protect against most diseases/bugs? I just bought three of these and wondering what to expect. I have tried several times to post this and it won't post so I am going to put the photos on the comments section!

Travis, That's a tough dilemma to diagnose properly. A chewing insect, or its larva, seems plausible...some kind of caterpillar. Then slugs are famous for making erratically shaped damage. I have giant slugs that grow to 3.5" long and .75" diameter, but are unable to do much damage to the roses being to heavy to slither up thorny canes, but they decimate low growing perennials and annuals, even eating just emerging new spring growths on Opuntia cacti. I have seen, with my own four eyes (counting my glasses!), English sparrows, pigeons, and starlings tear leaves and segments of leaves off of many kinds of garden plants. They either eat them, just drop them as if for spite, or fly off to add the leaf to their nests. Sparrows in particular, decimate annual poppy foliage here. Pigeons devour my sedum and hen and chicks. Pigeons will also pick at and eat petunia leaves. Since the foliage in question on your rose is relatively close to the ground, I suspect giant slugs, or an avian pest at work. If so, I believe that as your rose increases on size, the damage will diminish and probably discontinue all together. Moses