If You Do Spray--How Often?

I spray roses every ten days from April until mid-October.  Your annual schedule may be slightly different, depending on where you live.  I've tried to skip spraying once or twice, but have learned conclusively that if I do, rose beds begin to look like insect delicatessens or white fallout areas.  Then I'll have to spend a lot of time with corrective, not preventive, spray materials.  So I don't let up.

The good news is that proper spraying, including taking all necessary precautions, takes much less time than you may imagine.  The garden at my house in San Francisco, where I now have one hundred bushes growing in a 25-foot-by-40-foot area, can be sprayed in slightly more than an hour.  For the rewards spraying brings, that's not a lot of time to spend every ten days.