Brunnings Rose Spray, what it treats and how to spray it

Aphids and black spot on roses, and what a rose spray actually does

Roses put on soft new growth faster than almost anything else in the garden, and soft new growth is exactly what an aphid is after, so the two problems arrive together every year and they'll keep arriving. Add the black spot that turns up on the older leaves in damp weather and you've got the two complaints that account for most of what people bring into the shop about roses.

What is in the bottle

Brunnings Rose Spray is a ready to use bottle that carries an insecticide and a fungicide together, so the one spray is going after the sap suckers and the leaf fungus at the same time. That's the convenience of it and it's also the thing to think about before you reach for it, because a combined spray treats a plant whether or not both problems are actually present. Read the label on the bottle for the actives and the plants it's registered for, and go by that rather than by anything written on the internet, this page included.

Start with the aphids, because most of the time they don't need a spray at all

This is the part that gets missed. An aphid colony on a rose bud looks alarming and it very rarely kills anything, and if you leave it a fortnight the ladybirds and the lacewings usually turn up and deal with it for nothing. A jet from the hose knocks most of them off, and a thumb and finger run up the stem does the rest on a bush or two.

The reason that matters is that an insecticide isn't fussy about which insect it lands on. Spray the aphids and you take out the ladybird larvae eating them, so the next hatch of aphids arrives into a garden with nothing left to eat them and you're spraying again. Plenty of people end up on a spray schedule they created themselves, and the way off it is to leave the small outbreaks alone.

When the spray genuinely earns its place

• A bad, sustained infestation on a bush that's already struggling, where the new growth is curling and going nowhere.
• Black spot that's got away over a wet stretch and is stripping the bush bare well before it should be dropping its leaves.
• A prized bush you've got a reason to keep clean, where you're prepared to accept the trade against the beneficial insects.

Black spot is mostly a housekeeping problem

Black spot is a fungus that needs the leaf to stay wet for several hours to get going, so the things that beat it are about water and air rather than chemistry. Water at the roots rather than over the top of the bush, and do it in the morning so that anything which does get wet has dried off by evening. Prune to open the middle of the bush up as well, so the air can move through it. Then pick up the fallen leaves and bin them rather than composting them, because the spores sit on that leaf litter and come back up onto the bush with the first splash of rain.

A spray on its own, with the leaf litter still sitting underneath, is a losing arrangement. The spray protects new growth and it won't cure a leaf that's already spotted, so the infected leaves lying on the ground go on reinfecting everything you've just sprayed.

How to spray it without causing yourself a second problem

• Late afternoon or early evening, once the bees have finished for the day. Bees work roses hard and an insecticide applied over an open flower in the middle of the morning is the worst version of this.
• Still conditions. If you can feel a breeze on your face, the spray is going where you didn't aim it.
• Not in the heat and not in full sun, because a wet leaf under a hot sun scorches and you'll blame the spray for damage the weather did.
• Cover the undersides of the leaves properly, since that's where the mites and the young aphids sit and a top-only spray misses them entirely.
• Well away from ponds and water tanks, and nowhere near a drain. Garden insecticides are hard on fish and on anything else living in a small pond.

This is a rose and ornamental product rather than a veggie patch one, so keep it off anything you're going to eat unless the label specifically covers that crop and you've followed the withholding period on it. Wash your hands afterwards and keep the kids and the dog off the bed until the foliage is dry.

The thing that beats both problems long term

A rose under stress gets hit harder by everything, so the unglamorous answer is a well fed bush with its roots covered. Feed it through the growing season and mulch it so the soil isn't swinging between bone dry and soaked. Prune out the weak growth too, because that's the growth which gets into trouble first. A strong bush shrugs off an aphid outbreak that would set a struggling one back a season.

Shop related products

• Brunnings Rose Spray 1L. Ready to use, with an insecticide and a fungicide in the one bottle.
• Brunnings Rose & Flower Food 2.5kg. Feeding the bush is half the answer to both problems.
• Neutrog Sudden Impact for Roses 1.5kg. The organic based option if you'd rather feed that way.
• Brunnings Garden Compost with Seaweed 25L. For getting some cover over the root zone.

Did you know we also carry Rose Spray as a 250ml concentrate in the shop for anyone with more than a couple of bushes to get around, along with lime sulphur for the winter clean up. They're not all listed on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf, or have a wander through the garden centre and we'll talk it through.

Read next

• Brunnings Bug and Fungus Kill, and where not to use it
• Brunnings Potash Power, and what potassium actually does
• Soil amendments, and which one your garden actually needs

I'm slow to reach for a spray on my own roses, mostly because the ladybirds will do it for free and they never ask me to read a label first.

Cheers,
Candeece

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