The problem is caused largely by Thrips. I experience the same problem in my
garden.

Thrips are sucking insects - much much smaller than aphids. Very tiny. Take
the flower - you can see the tiny insects scammering around inside.

Its especially bad with the light colored roses - the whites and yellows. -
Also affects Azaelas a lot too.

The thrips are attracted to those colors.

They burrow into the flower buds - lay their eggs - and when the flowers
bloom - the young suck the life out of it.

Rogor is good at dealing with them. They are much harder to get rid of than
aphids.

Cheers,

YMC



"Dave -Turner" wrote in message
. au...
in my backyard i have a yellow rosebush, and to the right of it a pink
rosebush ... they were here when i moved in 3 years ago.

I don't know how long this phenomenon has been happening, but this year i
noticed that some -- not many, just a few, of the yellow roses were
getting
pink bits on them, mostly speckles .....

I asked a few people but they weren't sure what might be happening so I'm
just wondering if anybody here might be able to shed some light on it?

Here is a photo of a couple of the yellow roses with pink spots --
http://i40.tinypic.com/2a9pt9d.jpg
You can notice at the bottom of the photo that there's a normal, perfectly
yellow unaffected rose flower -- as most of the yellow roses are, yet the
two in the foreground are 'pinkified'