I started growing roses in our new home 13 years ago. At first it was just a random collection of floribundas, hybrid teas and climbers that the local box stores offered in the spring. I was reasonably successful with them until about ten years ago when I bought several potted roses from a local nursery in the summer. Those expensive potted roses had rose midge and within two years I had no roses blooming after the first flush. It was depressing, and it took me a while to figure out what caused this. I tried everything that was supposed to work to get rid of the little monsters, but ultimately they defeated me. I gave up, let the roses be and enjoyed what blooms they produced without any care from me. Not very proud of that part. I started planting more perennials to partially hide the pathetic looking roses and to have something blooming in what I still call my rose garden.

Anyways, fast forward to the present and for some reason the rose bug has taken hold again. It must be the healthy rose bushes growing and flowering like crazy in the roundabouts near my house. I want and need roses in my yard. After researching online I have come up with a battle plan. First, I am going to eliminate all rose bushes from my garden this fall. My plan is to have no roses for a year in my yard before I start planting a few roses the following spring. Hopefully this break will be enough to eliminate them from my yard. I will carefully monitor those first roses and try to treat for rose midge right away if and when I start to see the tell tale signs. Last time I had no idea what to look out for and I didn't realize I had a severe rose midge infection until it was too late and it had jumped to all my roses.

What do you think? I know it's a radical step, but on the other hand it will also eliminate some rose varieties that didn't do well in our climate. Thanks for any feedback or advice you can give.

Also, I'd prune differently, recognizing that midge will screw up a normal pruning routine big time. Wait before pruning away winter damage. Then prune lightly, leaving as much cane as possible Then, during the season, just prune away the midge damage as you see it. The idea is to maximize the opportunities of the plant to bloom in the presence of some midge damage--I doubt you can make them go away.

We have midge and plenty of blooms--we even won Queen and King at the RI Rose show last year.