How to Protect Your Roses Without Using Chemicals

Views: 16352 | Last Update: 2009-03-27
In order to protect roses without using chemicals, the first step is to pick out leaves that are bad by hand, but neem oil can also be sprayed on roses as an organic solution. Find out how fungus and black spot infections can spread between leaves on a... View Video Transcript

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Stan DeFreitas

Video Transcript

Hi I'm Stan DeFreitas, Mr Green Thumb. Well one of the questions you get asked quite a bit is how do we protect roses without using a lot of different chemicals? Well, you probably need to go in and do some good sanitation on the plant and that just means if you go in and you see some leaves that are bad which you're going to find on almost every rose bush, go in and pick off some of the worst leaves by hand. If you've got a little paper bag, go out daily, pick off the worst of it because remember these leaves are going to be a breeding ground for spores and other problems. All the fungus like blackspot, powdery mildew, downy mildew they start off on the leaf and as soon as a raindrop or water drop hits it, it spreads the sport to the next leaf and then the infection increases. So good sanitation may be your best answer. Now if you do get into doing some spraying, I'd use something like this neem oil if you're trying to use something that's organic. The neem oil is made from the neem tree from Africa. So almost all the organic gardening clubs say neem oil seems to be one of those safe type products. Make sure you spray entirely over the plant, mix it up enough sprayer just like you would one of the chemicals and spray the plant from head to toe and you should keep your plants healthy and flowering. For, I'm Stan DeFreitas.