I'm still having some problems with my sickly roses. The blooms on most of
them are stunted and deformed; they don't open into proper rose blooms at
all.

The only significant numbers of creatures I can find on the plants are these
little black beetles. I thought they may be blackfly at first but they
definitely aren't any kind of aphid, I think. They have shiny wingcases and
are a couple of mm long, and those blooms that do open, they cluster in the
middle around the nectar. They're quite fast moving. Are they likely to be
the villains harming the buds?

I've sprayed the roses with Provado but it certainly hasn't harmed these
little beetles, there are lots of them. No green or black fly that I can see
though, or anything else come to that. The roses have been fed and are
regularly watered. It's very disappointing having buds form but then not
flower properly; only a small fraction are making it to a proper bloom.

Any ideas?


Ian