I've hardly ever seen earwigs in the rose garden. Are you sure they are harmful? I think not. I think they are insect predators and scavengers who are nocturnal so they are probably just hiding in your roses during the day. Or you may have some rain damaged rotten blooms which they are eating. I have seen them in the bloom compost pile so I know they like dead roses.

Do you have some small pots? About 5-8 inches deep - fill them with a little long dry grass forming something that looks like a birds nest. Place the pots bottom up different places on the ground where you see the earwigs do damage. Once every day (mornings) - take the pots and shake or tap the grass and earwigs into a bucket. Poor boiling water from an electric kettle over them, in the bucket to kill them. Only worry I have is - this tecnique works well here where we have no poisonous critters - I don´t know if other critters in your area will seek shelter in the pots too and give you a scare when you lift the pots with hay.

I am told that it will also work to put cantaloupe rinds upside down at night, and pick 'em up in the morning.

My only reservation is that, when I see earwigs (UGH!) they are in blooms, maybe 6 ft in the air.
So do they catch the siren song of the cantaloup rind and rush to their doom?

Jeri

I am having the same problem, mass earwigs! Ewwww! One bloom had 5 in it! I went to smell it and UHHCH! Just lovely. Mind you these are brand new raised beds. They are eating my rose buds. I read:
"The easiest way to remove earwigs from your yard would be to put down some rolled-up damp newspapers in the garden. The earwigs will be in the folds of the paper the next morning and you can haul them off.."
Good luck to us!

Jeri great idea with the cantaloupe-rinds! I will use that tip since it will also work against the horrible killer slugs (start out small - but grows big and looks like crawling dogpoop. They eat and damage everything if allowed to take hold - ferramol garanula (non-toxic) has proved effective keep the numbers down.

Earwigs do cause damage on roseplants holes in leaves and petals chewed with holes. Damage other ornamental gardenplants too. The damage is mild to severe. I keep their numbers down but allow a few and tolerate a little damage.

BUT: When I worked as doctor at the ER I saw why they are Called "EAR" wigs. Some patients had woken up in the middle of the night, feeling a bug crawling in their ears - I have seen grown men cry in discomfort and hysteria wanting to get rid of them - but couldn't get them out since they sat in a fold near the tympanic membrane. This is not a rare incidence in summer time, when people go camping or sleep with their windows open in the summertime. The big black beetles that were able to crawl in, but unable to back out, because they can´t turn were however worse ..... I hope it never ever happens to me .......

Thanks for all the good suggestions - I'm willing to try anything. I like your humor Karl - relax, worst things are coming soon! Yes, the JBs are much worse. These earwigs just look so icky. I tried to pick some beautiful blooms to give to a friend and there are all these icky bugs coming out of them. Alas.

BUT: When I worked as doctor at the ER I saw why they are Called "EAR" wigs. Some patients had woken up in the middle of the night, feeling a bug crawling in their ears - I have seen grown men cry in discomfort and hysteria

*** Does anyone, other than me, remember that starkly-horrible episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"

Jeri

Jeri, I remember that episode well, especially the part where the earwig was a female and laid eggs in his brain. The resulting munching noise in his brain as the eggs hatched and the larva were eating their way out was creepy.

It sure was -- and the memory pops up everytime I see an Earwig.
ICK!

Jeri

Oh man!!!You guys! I was sitting here munching on a snack while reading this. I can't finish my snack now......the brain munching larva part got to me.

Sandy

I found this page when searching after noticing earwigs around our newly planted bushes here in a Greece. They are reddish rather than dark as in Ontario, Canada. There are only a few just yet and I appreciate the many suggestions to combat them if they become a menace to the plants.

On a note to Jeri in ER. I remember candelling the ears of a friend of mine who came complaining of feeling that something was inside and sure enough what was drawn out was part of a earwig - the unmistakable horned bit. So just to know there is a quick, safe and easy remedy for much more than earwigs. Thanks for all the good advice!

Preying mantis love eating earwigs for a snack.

Do NOT believe anyone who says earwigs aren't harmful to roses. I don't know why I keep growing roses, but the ones I have left are perpetually ruined by earwig infestations. So I cut off the blooms, all of them, and dispose of them immediately in a plastic bag. Then you can put out traps of molasses water and soy sauce which need to be emptied every morning, and/or sprinkle boric acid powder all around the base and in the bases (crotch) of the plant so that any earwigs that traipse through the powder to leaves and blooms will track it with them. I live on a converted horse ranch and after 20 years of no horses, it seems they are still attracted to the soil that is still full of desiccated horse manure. I can't even grow rhubarb here because of the earwigs. And they do bite and can be aggressive, no matter what nature-loving bug lovers will tell you. When there are thousands of them teeming around someplace you need to be, they are no longer a benefit to the eco-system. Yuck! Oh, yes, I did have an earwig in my ear..it was screaming-torture. I think my cat,w ho slept on my bed, may have brought it in or even me after working in the yard. I ended up in my doctor's office the next morning. He thought I was joking with him when I told him I had an earwig in my ear....he didn't find the earwig body but did find a large scab where it had bitten me several times. So again....no love lost and no sympathy for any number of earwigs in my garden. The damage definitely outweighs any benefits from earwigs.

I don't know why I've never seen this thread before, or maybe I did and blocked it out, but now I will have nightmares. Oy. Where are my earplugs?!

I see earwigs here but not in numbers... Brittie you should not of read this thread...lol... Like Freddie Krueger the earwigs will haunt you now! Don't fall asleep...lol

I am so glad to see that I'm not the only one with earwigs all over their roses. (Not glad that any of us have them, but I've never seen them mentioned here before). I might have seen one or two in my garden in past years , but this year they are RAMPANT! I cannot go to sniff a rose without finding an earwig imbedded in it somewhere. SO gross!!! I did dress all my beds with composted horse manure this year, & some of the above comments lead me to believe that maybe this caused or at least contributed to the infestation. Dangit! It seems like I can't take one step forward without taking one back.. oh well, live & learn!

Jessica

I need to google for a picture of an earwig. Can this cause the leaves to drop off? Or is this a slug problem?

We do not have them in numbers here so I do not even notice there damage. I see them hiding in our blooms once in awhile...They do feed on aphids and spidermites... But in numbers they can chew you garden up..

http://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/garden-pests/earwig-control/

OMG! old post but I see so many come here after being shocked by these crawlers popping out of roses! I was out for a stroll deadheading my roses after taking a cutting to bring back inside. After a minute several of these "earwigs" started crawling everywhere from within the tightly curled rose petals. Throwing the cutting to the ground and insanely thinking these crawlies were all over me (can't stop the feeling) I rushed inside to GOOGLE these horrid creatures. Every website says, "CALM DOWN" lol but how can I after such a shock. I think I have PTSD now and though everyone says not to worry, its definitely worrisome to say the least. After calming down a bit, I realize that these bugs weren't out to get me or my roses but are just part of nature. So just check the roses before hauling them inside. ☺ I'm okay with that. No calls to the Emergency Room, YET!

The people who feel earwigs are not damaging to roses are ignorant and uninformed. Just because they haven't 'seen' them doing their dirty deed doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It does-at night. They hide during the day.

I just had to research,again, how to get rid of them, again, this year. They have proven so resistant to my efforts that I have pulled out 9 of 12 mature rose bushes just to minimize their creepiness.

Using newspapers or cantaloupe or whatever cute little trick is advised would be a full time job for you. They are very prolific and if left unnoticed will take over your garden, depending on your climate. Females can lay 30 to 80 eggs over the winter. Multiply that by how many thousand already live in your soil......

One article on Wikipedia claims it is a myth regarding earwigs crawling into ears Not a myth. It happened to me and it took a lot of convincing to get my doctor to believe that the scab on my eardrum was from an earwig. He is now a believer.

How to get rid of them? There are chemicals to spray but I've tried to avoid things like LambdaStar and anything coming from a chemical factory. To me those products are so damaging to the environment that I prefer to remove my rose bushes instead..

You might try "Safer Brand Ant and Crawling Insect Killer" which uses diatomaceous earth. Or spray insect soap containing a pyrethrum. Or sprinkle Borax around the border of rose bush stalks. Or do all 3. Good luck!

I didn't have them in my potted roses until I put western red cedar mulch in May. I don't really know how to get rid of them so I just removed the mulch. I thought that since they are scavengers, if there's no rotting wood to feast on then they would not thrive.

We as well have earwigs in our roses, they eat the petals and hide under them for you not to see them. Will try this Cantu lope trick.....

My iceberg roses were pruned beautifully late autumn 2018 and now are coming up so beautifully...that is until I noticed the RETURN OF THE EARWIGS!!!! Did anyone see that episode from the original Star Trek where one person was captured and tortured by inserting a giant critter into his ear??? But they are now in the healthy blooms of my roses and when I cut and bring them in the house they come creeping out! Yuck! And we've had lots of rain this Winter and now I'm finding "hordes" of these critters when i lift a pot from the ground. More yuck!

Thats it, I'm putting cotton in my ears tonight!

I always come and visit this rose forum and get lots of information about roses and get inspired by them. Maybe this is the time I might leave a comment. This is very gross I warn you.

when My daughter was a little girl, she was afraid of the dark and went pee in the bucket that I didn’t know exsisted in her closet and hid it under the winter coat. When I went in there to clean, I found a pee bucket and apparently the earwigs love the smell and fall in there and die. so you can only imagine how it was for me. Found a bucket under the coat and thousands of earwigs dead floating. I think I screamed. So I think it may actually work well if you have a pet. Put whatever it peed on like a fabric and put it in the plastic bucket and lightly cover and put it in the dark place behind bushes. Lol. Just a thought! its upto you to try Or not. Hahaha.

Sluggo Plus kills earwigs (NOT Sluggo, which just kills snails, you gotta get the Plus, which is why it's more expensive)
I had to start using it for my fruit trees in pots. They would sleep in the tight corners where the peaches, plums, apple stems were tight against the branches and then eat holes in my fruit at night. After hosing the sleeping earwigs off the fruit, a pile of Sluggo Plus at the fruit trunk base took care of them!
Carla in Sac

Yup, my botany teacher just told us two weeks ago that Sluggo Plus kills them. Apparently, they freak her out as well. Sluggo Plus is Spinosad. Info on Spinosad. Just saw that this is an old link. I do find that some years I have more earwigs than others.

Years ago I lived in a log home which had a lot of earwigs. I wanted a black light to put in my room at night cuz I thought it was cool. I left it on all night and when I woke up in the morning I was stunned to see thousands of dead earwigs on my bedroom floor. I don’t know how or why it kills them but it does! Put a few black lights out and in the morning you can sweep them away. Repeat until there are none left in the mornings. It’s a cheap surefire way to kill them and it is safe. Good luck and let me know if it worked please

P.S if anyone knows the answer as to why the black lights kill them, I would love to know the scientific logic behind how it works. I did notice that one “very expensive “ pest control company uses it as “part” of the eradication process. But my experience is that no other pesticide was needed, only the black light itself. It was one indoor bulb I had put into a lamp and it was in approximately a 400 sq ft room. After the accidental finding, we kept it up in my room (while I slept down stairs) until there were no more showing up. i can’t remember how long it was but not long. The nice thing is that ALL the dead earwigs were within a 30 ft area around my bed so cleanup was easy. I would Try one bulb at first, then try several in the same area and see what happens. Make sure you use a regular black light, not an energy efficient, just in case. This was back in 1978