Check the labels on your products and make sure it says it's for thrips. Otherwise you can either wait it out, they do have a season, or cut the buds.

I deeply sympathise with you. Had the same problem last fall when the drought started, and I found the yellow sticky traps could catch a lot of them, not all but a lot, you could give that a try. If you find out a better way to combat these little things please post it here.

Here's a picture of some buds I clipped this morning. Other bushes which have stopped blooming look sick. For 40 years my bushes have been mostly trouble-free, only sprayed a few times. Barely had any aphids or mildew this spring. And now this. it's very disturbing. Aren't these just UGLY???

I got a spray bottle of spinosad, clipped a bush down to just sticks and sprayed it. I clipped it because recently when in The Huntington neighborhood I noticed all their small roses at the entry gate were clipped down very short, 8"-ish. Maybe they clipped them and then sprayed. I have about 30 bushes and cannot do all with a little spray bottle. My hand was cramped doing the one bush. Maybe I'll get someone to come do it. I don't like to spray myself.

I used blue plastic cups on sticks coated in generic granola oil this year and it really helped with regular flower thrips... Hardly any damage at all...

Here is a thread about it..

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3816744/omg-blue-cup-thrips-control-actually-works?n=58

Socks (10A)

You need to read up on Thrips (as in western flower thrips) and Chili Trips which are a much more recently emergent destroyer of roses and other plants.

And you need to find out which one you have and then decide how much you care to do/ pay to have done.

There are two different problems with different approaches to solutions

Socks has a picture of the classic chili thrips damage. There is no easy way to attack this problem and it's yours for a long while. Conserve SC is the go-to product. I also use the Ortho products with limited success. The Bayer product is not that effective alone and tends to throw your bug ecosystem out of whack.

Good luck and I hope, Alodal, that your problem doesn't resemble Socks' issue.

Down here in critter country South Florida we try to keep our roses dormant during the hot summer chili thrips season months.

Socks, I read recently on the Antiques Forum that the Huntington is experiencing a chili thrips invasion currently, so I'm sure that is why those roses were cut back. I'm no expert, but your photo looks just like the photos I've seen of chili thrips damage, and spinosad and blue cups aren't going to help. I don't think spinosad has been helpful at all here for regular thrips. Diane

chili thrips must really be nasty... :-/

I found this rose society article:

http://www.rose.org/chilli-thrips-dont-let-em-bug-you/