Powdery mildew?

Question

How do you get rid of powdery mildew on a rose bush?

Answer 1

Funny you should ask, I just went to Wally World (walmart) and got a spray for my roses, called Fungicide 3 ("Garden Safe" brand) and it is for powdery mildew, blask spot, rust, also insects like aphids, whitefly's, and a whole list of other bugs, and also spider mites and aphids. Its got "neem" in it, and it can be used on not just roses but other flowers, shrubs and fruits and veggies.

Answer 2

The Bayer stuff will work, but it's really very toxic, and for powdery mildew, it may be a bit like performing brain surgery with a pickaxe.  I would try the Cornell Formula first:

1 gallon of water

2 tablespoons of light horticultural oil (Sunspray, for example -- you can buy this at any garden center)

  4 teaspoons of baking soda

Or, if you don't want to mix it yourself, there's a product called "GreenCure fungicide" that's pretty much the same thing, except with potassium bicarbonate instead of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).  It's worked really well for me, and it's also very safe -- you can even use it on food plants.  

It's up to you how organic you want your garden to be, of course, but I usually try to stay away from poisonous stuff as much as I can.  I'd try the safer mixture first, and if it doesn't work for you, maybe then you can decide if you want to pull out the big guns to fight the fungus.

Also, like a previous poster said, be sure to water the soil and not the leaves, and try to promote good air circulation around your rose.  Picking off and throwing away badly infected leaves also helps keep the fungus problems down.

Answer 3

The best stuff I have used is called Bayer advanced insect and disease control.  It is not specifc to just roses but types of plants.  It's not the 3 in 1 kind.  It comes in a bottle that you connect to the hose.  I used it this year and it worked really well.  You can buy it at Lowes.

Answer 4

There are mildew fighting sprays you can get for plants.  Also, you don't want to water the leaves at night (or at all), the water can cause mildew... just water the base of the plant.

Make sure you have pruned out the center of the plant well enough so that air can move freely through the plant.  The mildew may stay until it dries out, and it is contagious, so if the leaves are really covered in mildew, you may want to pull off the worst of them.