Glad you started this thread, I have the same questions about lady bugs. I have had aphids and I did spray them with water and so far I haven't seen any more.

Cadence, your aphid season should be ending -- I'm in a cooler zone than you and I'm not seeing any now. Typically, I have aphids like crazy on the roses (and sugar snap peas) in April/May coinciding with the spring flush and then only onesies and twosies for the rest of the summer & fall.

Of course once the aphids and sawflies diminish the JBs arrive.

In the past we have been told that once you knock off the aphids, they may not die immediately, but cannot climb back on the rose.

The ladybugs should come automatically if you are not using a chemical to discourage them. Do you use insecticides, or do your landscapers use them in the lawn care?

I have read here that you should purchase the nymph stage that crawls because they will fly away. You might try to research bug sites, or ask here about other good bugs.

Thrips are worse for me than aphids.

if you carefully think about all the chemicals you use, are you using something that is discouraging ladybugs? Do you have many bees or other good guys?

Sammy

I always buy my ladybugs from sellers on ebay and have never had a problem so far. They arrive in a sealed mesh bag inside a box so you don't have to worry about them escaping.

When you release them, do it at dusk just before it's totally dark and they won't fly away (I think ladybugs won't fly at night)... Before releasing them you should spray your rose bushes with water because the ladies will be thirsty and it will encourage them to stick around.

1. My aphids do climb back but not all of them. That's OK because all you need to aim at is preventing the shoots from being totally encrusted for days at a time.

3. You can't keep ladybugs from flying away. IMO it is a waste of money. If there are aphids, predators will find them.

I'm a big fan of using ladybugs for aphid control! I get mine from Amazon.com; they come in a mesh bag.

Once you have them, pop them in the fridge for a while to get them sleepy. At sunset, take them out and spritz them lightly with a solution of 50/50 Coke and water. This will make their wings sticky, so they stay put until it wears off. Release them into your garden. In the morning, they'll wake up to an aphid feast and crawl all over eating them up. When there are no more, they'll fly away in search of other prey.

It's also good if the garden is a bit damp, so they have water.

A few may stick around to lay eggs, in which case you get more bang for your buck!

See: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/roses/msg061127421376.html

The roses themselves drive the aphids away. When the earlier thread scrolls away, this link
http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/22930
will still bring one to the main paper.

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Research concerning how much control Lady Bug release has on aphids on roses.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049964405000721

Here is a link that might be useful: link to earlier thread

Thanks for all the info everyone! We spray for ants around our home and at first I thought it was keeping the lady bugs away but I finally did see a few on the roses so I feel better now. I did take everyone's suggestion a few weeks ago when I posted a thread panicking about my aphids and sprayed them with water and wiped the aphids off and it has worked so far.

Thanks to everyone for all your information regarding the aphids and ladybugs. I NEVER use chemicals in my garden so I know I'm not hindering lady bugs from going on all my roses. So far, I've just been either hosing them off or putting on my thin rubber gloves and spritzing them with my water, oil and soap mixture and removing them by hand. I was just wondering if they would crawl back on the roses after hosing them off. I love the photo (above) with the lady bugs on the leaf. Thanks for posting it Holly. That leaf sure looks healthy to me.