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Recommended Spray Program
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As soon as you receive your fungicide, insecticide or miticide, write the date on the label.
If properly stored in a climate-controlled area, the product should be good for 5 years.
Remember to always wear protective clothing and a pesticide respirator when spraying any pesticide.
Fungicides: With any good spray program, the key is "Prevention". You don't want to be spending
all your time fighting blackspot and powdery mildew. You want to prevent it from happening in the
first place. When you prune in the spring, you should immediately start your spray program.
We recommend you spray the canes and bed with a blackspot contact killer such as Mancozeb/Pentathlon
LF or Manzate/Pentathlon DF. This will eliminate any blackspot spores that may have wintered over.
One week later, start your preventative program and continue until your roses go dormant from cold weather.
Rosarians in warmer climates like Florida and California will need to continue their spray program year round.
Our Best Program: If you have a large garden (100+ bushes) or if money is no object when it comes to
protecting your prized roses, we recommend alternating Banner Maxx with Compass every two weeks.
Less work, less exposure to chemicals, more time to enjoy the roses.
Economical Program: Spray Banner Maxx every two weeks. Add Pentathlon DF or Mancozeb
to the Banner Maxx every other spraying. The Pentathlon or Mancozeb (Pentathlon LF)
will kill any blackspot spores that are building up a resistance to the Banner Maxx. Remember:
Anytime you combine products, always use them at full strength. If blackspot is already active
in your garden, spraying a preventative alone is not going to be enough. You need a blackspot contact
killer. Spray Pentathlon DF or Mancozeb every three days for three intervals. Example: Spray on Monday,
Thursday and Sunday. Be sure to spray the top and bottom side of the leaves and the soil in the bed.
This will kill all the active spores and give you a fresh start. Once completed, go back to your regular
preventative program. If you are using products like Cleary's, Funginex and Immunox, you will need to
spray every seven days. These are excellent products but they do not give long protection like Banner Maxx
and Compass.
Insecticides and Miticides: We do not recommend spraying insecticides or miticides preventively.
Spray them only when you have a pest problem. Products like Orthene work great on most common pests
like aphids and thrips. However, they also kill the beneficial insects that naturally keep the
spider mites under control. For best protection against aphids, we recommend Merit. For thrips you
cannot beat Conserve SC. Spray for spider mites when you first start to see evidence of them.
Remember that Avid only kills the adults so you will need to repeat after three or four days to kill
the newly hatched mites. Floramite will eliminate both the adult mites and the eggs so it is rare to
have to repeat more often than 21 days. We recommend the use of Indicate 5 with all of the products
mentioned above. Indicate 5 will enable the spray to easily coat the entire upper and lower surfaces
of the leaves.
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