Requiem for a Wonderful Rose

I’m feeling a little down in the dumps today. That’s because I just made the decision to wave the white flag in the battle a most wonderful rose has been waging with rose stem girdlers.

The rose in question is ‘Therese Bugnet’ which is a rugosa, or shrub, rose. I planted her about 25 years ago and she thrived like no other rose. She quickly spread throughout one area of my rose garden and each June, she rewarded me with hundreds of beautiful blossoms. They had a lovely fragrance that I always stopped to appreciate every time I walked by.

About three years ago, I noticed some of her canes had odd swellings in them (refer to photo at lower right). At first I thought it was some sort of a gall. Then I thought it might be the raspberry stem borer before finally having it positively identified as rose stem girdler (Agrilus cuprescens).

What happens is that the canes infested with the girdlers will snap in half so you have to prune them out and destroy the infested canes. What’s really frightening is that rose stem girdlers can affect cane berries as well (such as raspberries and blackberries). Eek.

The first year, my rose probably lost 15 canes to this problem. The next year, it was double that.

And this year? Well, as I started pruning the canes yesterday, I soon realized at least 85% of the canes were affected. It didn’t take me long to come to the realization that it wasn’t going to get any better.

While it’s true there are insecticides that will work against rose stem girdlers, I am committed to growing everything organically and, frankly, want nothing to do with chemicals. 

So what is the solution? Dig out the rose roots — which is going to be a big job, let me tell you — and replace ‘Therese Bugnet’ with a resistant type of rose. I’ve heard that shrub roses and possibly moss roses are more susceptible to this dreadful insect, so I’ll have to avoid growing them. I do have some wonderful David Austin roses nearby that haven’t been bothered by the stem girdlers at all so I’ll select more of them to fill the void.

In the meantime, thank you, Therese Bugnet, for the beauty to gave to my garden for so many years. I’m sorry it had to end this way.