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  Bigyin June 4, 2010 at 12:18pm

  Hi Gaynor,
  Thanks for the reply. I'm not confident that it's the capsid bug as this is a commonly reported problem on the net and none of the pictures correspond to my plant. I intended to take a closeup photo but unfortunately my camera has just gone on the blink. I'm going to have a closer look at the rose to see if I can spot anything walking around.
  Regards,
  Roger
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  Bigyin June 5, 2010 at 1:38pm

  Hi again Gaynor,
  I've had a closer look and can't see anything alive on the leaves. In the temporary absence of a camera, I picked a leaf and scanned it.
  

  

  The leaf on the right is from the plant in question. It's a Landora.
  The one on the left is from a nearby Barcarole. There are only a couple of damaged leaves on this one which is normally the most vigourous and healthy look type that I have whereas the Landoras don't do so well in general.
  I think you'll agree that the damage on the left looks different to that on the right. We do get the odd leaf cutter bee which doesn't cause too much of a problem.
  I'm new to rose growing and just picked up a few varieties that were available locally. I have to admit that I haven't got into a maintenance routine yet. It's all a bit rough and ready here while we're trying to establish a "framework
  ".
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  Gareth June 5, 2010 at 2:27pm

  What about the 'Rose-slug' sawfly, Endelomyia aethiops which is known to be a top surface leaf grazer? I have alot of rose leaf curl sawfly at the moment.
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  pete June 5, 2010 at 3:33pm

  Same as Gareth – nearest I could find was this slug-sawfly.... whatever it is Roger, I'd use some organic treatment which might be the better option in the long run.
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  Bigyin June 5, 2010 at 4:46pm

  Hi Gareth and Pete,
  Looks like you've both hit the nail on the head. The bottom left photo in the link Pete posted shows the appearance of the patches exactly (although the leaves on my plant have hardly any flesh left). I was going to ask advice about simple rose care (I don't have time for anything too complicated). Looks like apart from the usual watering and feeding, a fortnightly spray with neem would be beneficial as I can use it on my oleanders and fruit trees etc. as well. Thanks for your input. Looks like we have the answer Gaynor.
  Mine is probably the European variety so the fact that it only has one life cycle per year is encouraging.
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  Helen Gazeley June 11, 2010 at 12:49pm

  Talking of simple rose care, I thought the link below to Garden Organic's paper on the Organic Management of Roses might be of interest as good practice leads to lower maintenance. At the start it's all about National Trust, difficulties etc but there's a useful section in the middle on Growing Conditions for Roses.
  
  http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/pdfs/Rosestechnote.pdf
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  Bigyin June 11, 2010 at 1:22pm

  Fantastic source of information and very interesting. Thanks very much Helen. Incidentally, I went to my local co-operative yesterday looking for neem oil. The smallest bottle they had was 1 litre at 30 Euros so the hunt is on round the other co-operatives for something a bit smaller :-)
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  Helen Gazeley June 11, 2010 at 2:49pm

  Bigyin, try essential oil and aromatherapy oil suppliers. Neem is used in massage and you should be able to get it in anything from 50mls up. I get mine from Essentially Oils (http://www.essentiallyoils.com), but I'm not sure if they'll supply if you haven't got an aromatherapy qualification. If you can't find a supplier, let me know.
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  Bigyin June 11, 2010 at 9:38pm

  Hi again Helen,
  Thanks for the suggestion. There aren't many shops of that sort round here. I get all my stuff from the co-operatives. One of them is bound to have smaller bottles. Collectively that have just about everything (one of them even has a big poster showing all the varieties of ganga that they sell the seeds of). I definitely don't have an aromatherapy qualification. The only certificate on my wall is "One width, any stroke" (although I did get my knots badge many years ago. :-)
  
  Helen Gazeley said:

  Bigyin, try essential oil and aromatherapy oil suppliers. Neem is used in massage and you should be able to get it in anything from 50mls up. I get mine from Essentially Oils (http://www.essentiallyoils.com), but I'm not sure if they'll supply if you haven't got an aromatherapy qualification. If you can't find a supplier, let me know.