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What’s wrong with my roses? That’s a question I heard many times over this past week. Nine times out of 10, the problem was due to some tiny little pests called thrips. For some reason, these little insects are especially bad this season.

How do you know you have thrips? Well, the most common sign of thrips damage will be flower buds that fail to open, deformed buds, flower buds that open but are deformed, and brown edges on the buds and flower petals.

Thrips are sucking insects that literally suck the juice from the cells of the plant. Thrips are commonly found on roses, but can also be a problem on vegetables, fruit trees and many different types of flowers. Gardeners will usually see the damage the thrips have done long before they actually see the pests.

As with most of these pesky insects, prevention is the key to the best and easiest control. In January or February, while the thrips are over wintering in the soil, apply beneficial nematodes.

Now that the thrips are actually in the buds of the plants, it is harder to get to them. While hidden inside a flower bud it’s impossible to get to the little guy with any type of insecticide. The best you can do is to eliminate them with garlic spray. Try several applications, a week apart, of a natural insecticide (Spinosade, Neem, Bioganic), and hope that you catch some of the thrips when they’re outside the buds. Releasing beneficial insects, such as silver lacewings, can also help you to get rid of many thrips and other bad insects.

You can buy garlic spray repellents or make your own. It’s easy to make it if you have a blender. To a blender full of water add a whole bulb of fresh garlic, one teaspoon of Ivory dish soap, and it’s optional to add several hot peppers. Make them the hottest variety you can get. Blend all these ingredients together, then strain the liquid into a jar. To a gallon of water add 1/4 cup of your garlic solution and spray all the foliage, above and below the leaves, and any buds and flowers. Keep the garlic concentrate in the refrigerator for a week or two, then make a fresh batch. This garlic-pepper spray is good at repelling all sorts of unwanted pests. Just do not use it when you need bees around to pollinate for you.

Thrips can fly, although they usually just float with the wind, to get from one plant to the other. The high winds we have had this season have helped to transport these little pests to many more areas of our yards. I think this might be why we are seeing more infestation damage from them than we normally do.

With the bad infestation of thrips this season, it will be important to put out beneficial nematodes the first of next year. Mark your calendar or watch my article for reminders.

Until next time, let’s try to garden with nature, not against it, and maybe all our weeds will become wildflowers.

Laurie Garretson is a Victoria gardener and nursery owner. Send your gardening questions to laurie@vicad.com or in care of the Advocate, P.O. Box 1518, Victoria, Texas 77902.