I have never eradicated mites with water or insecticidal soap. Once I got plants from a vendor thru the mail that had mites, I soaked them and sprayed them daily, and still the mites survived. I even used Avid, and those mites survived, I threw them away eventually to save the herd, so to speak.
If you want to save them, throw away every leaf that is infected because there are thousands of eggs on them, waiting to hatch.
Almost any chemical you get from walmart, lowes, etc that says it kills spider mites are not super effective, at least not for me.
But Spinosid, the chemical in Conserve, can be bought locally usually and some studies show effectiveness for mites at double strength. ( I use it for thrips) Greenlight makes some for about 16 dollars, makes 8 gallons I think at thrip strength. I haven't used it for mites.
Avid is ivermectin, and kills mites but not eggs. It is supposed to be good and you can find it online.
There are alot of miraculous miticides online, but unfortunately sold in large quart quantities and are very expensive.
Rose societies I have heard sometimes get together and share some of that stuff.
People say spraying the mites off every day with a hose from underneath works, but once you stop doing that, and who has the time, those eggs left behind hatch and the mites are back.
Sorry to be such a pessimistic person, but I have lost alot of roses to mites in the past.
I hate thrips, but at least they don't kill my plants, just ruin my blooms.
Good Luck
Kim

I don't know.
Water works for me.

In a really stubborn infestation, light hort oil works very well.

Jeri

I've mentioned this before, but I mix up wheat flour, water and milk, spray it on, and it turns them into little mummies. This is one case where the organic method has worked wonders on my roses.

Nancy

I bought some own-root plant in band or gallon size, did not take the precaution of spraying them with miticide (I have Avid and Floramite), and now some of them have quite a bit of spider mites. I am going to treat them with miticide. My other established plants don't have much spider mites problem since I spray them with miticide preventively.

AS kimhg suggests, I should remove the infested leaves.

Thanks. Now I have another question. When you take all the leaves off which I did, how do I treat the plant? Do the spider mites live in the soil? Should I go ahead and dip the entire plant in a bucket of water, since obviously I can't spray any leaves!!?? I was thinking I should treat the soil incase the eggs are in the soil??

First, please note that the real problems with mites are most prevalent in warm climates such as CA and TX. Second, warm water and soap doesn't do a bit of good. What you want is COLD water - as in at the end of a hose with a nozzle on it so you can direct a strong stream at the under side of the leaves. Hard enough so some of the leaves come off. In zone 5 that should cut your problems in half. Repeat maybe 3 days later and keep it up until the mites give up in disgust. They want it hot and dry so give them cold and wet.
Avid works fine for me - I use it indoors where I can't use the cold water treatment. You can get it at Rosemania but wherever you get it, the initial expense is a facer. Bear in mind that you are using 1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp per gallon - one tablespoon would make 6 gallons of spray, one cup 16 times as much (96 gallons?) so a pint would make 192 gallons - enough to last for years. (That's at the 1/2 tsp rate).

Wow, Nancy! What a creative treatment. But how do you get the "plaster" off the roses afterward?
Water DOES work. But it's not so much getting the leaves wet that does the trick; it's blasting them off so they literally lose their footing and get washed away. They are so short-lived that it takes too long for them to climb back on. You won't get all of them at once. But like Oldroser above said, keep it up and they tend to quit in disgust. Mites are something you keep in check. Don't expect permanent eradication. Sheesh! If I threw away the whole plant every time some spider mites found it, I'd have virtually no minis left. Those mottled, dry, damaged leaves will never recover, but as long as they're green, I keep them on until enough new leaves are present to take their place. Stripping the leaves will only get rid of "some" of the mites. There are still usually mites on the stems.
As far as chemicals: I've occasionally resorted to them for small newly rooted babies that catch some mites, because I'm afraid of blasting them too hard with water when they're that little. Ortho and Bayer pesticides both seem to help. Of course you have to give multiple treatments. I don't know why others say it doesn't work. The main negative is that beneficial insects get killed, too, and take longer to come back.

There are beneficisl predatory mites you can release to eat 'em up:
http://www.benemite.com/index.htm

Carla in Sac

I can't take credit for creativity Mike- I googled it last year when my entire rose collection was in meltdown mite mode. LOL Then I had to deal with some pug ugly- pasty looking foilage for about a month, but it kicked those mites to the curb. I had mites again this year, but only on my Iceberg standards- mixed up the handy/dandy cement shoes for the mites again and kissed them goodbye. Tony Soprano would be proud. :-)

Nancy

oldroser is telling you the truth. We had a major mite infestation a few years ago. I washed the bottom side of the foliage every other day for a month.
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I had to turn the water down for the photo. The wind was blowing water back at me and getting the camera wet. You get the idea. I've continued to wash foliage twice a week since. I noticed our powdery mildew magnets were not showing any when I was washing them so often. Warning: Neighbors and passersby will think you are out of your cottonpick'n mind.

I had spider mites on my Dalhia, a mixture of dawn dish detergent and water killed them. It doesn't leave a film on the plant. I sprayed once a week for a couple of week and no more bugs.

I believe people are expecting to spray a little water once or twice and the mites will be gone. My father had an infestation a few years ago during a drought. He sprayed twice a day with a 'hard' stream of water from the hose. After about 5 days he was sure they were gone. Expect some leaf damage from the force of the water.

I have always had great results using Avid to get rid of the mites. You have to spray every other day for four days. Avid is not phototoxic, so can be sprayed that often with no harm to the roses. The first spraying kills the live ones there and the next spraying kills the next batch of hatchlings. The final spray cleans up any that you missed the first two times. If you still have them after that, go through the routine again. Be as persistent as they are, and you will eventually get them all.

It seems to me the notion of "eradicating" mites is preposterous. The two-spotted mite has lots of hosts and is widespread in every garden. What is normal in most gardens is an equilibrium where you have some two-spotted mites on the roses, some predators eating them, and usually little or no noticeable damage. At times, weather conditions lead to a surge in the TSM population and you have a problem, starting on certain canary-in-the-coalmine varieties that you learn to identify and watch for danger signs.

If I bring a potted rose that has been doing fine outside into my sunspace, it will have a catastrophic mite problem within a month unless I spray it with soap or oil frequently. The basic reason is lower relative humidity. The mites were there all the time but not causing a problem.

Mite outbreaks are often caused by spraying insecticides which kill the predators of TSM. The use of Merit is known to cause an increase in TSM reproduction apart from the effect on beneficial predators. If an insecticide must be used, spinosad (for caterpillars, thrips, and sawflies) is best from the standpoint of mite control because it spares the predators. Mite outbreaks are favored by high temps, low relative humidity, and lack of rain as well as by use of insecticides. In areas with rainfall, roses planted under eaves are much more susceptible to mites.

New potted roses may be susceptible to mites because mite predators were killed by sprays in the greenhouse.

I can always find TSM on my roses, but I very rarely have a problem. That's because our weather normally doesn't favor them, and I don't use insecticides.

plant vitality+ worked for me, organic, safe and non toxic, it wiped them out in seconds and also the eggs meaning they couldnt come back, it worked in seconds leving my plants able to thrive, also Ive used it to destroy other little aphids. only product ive ever come across that actually works, so many products claim to work but just dont deliver the goods.

We have been using a product call No Spider Mites to help kill the mites on all of our plants. It is pretty potent and 100% organic and safe. I have used it successfully for the last year.

Here is a link that might be useful: Spider Mites Treatment