Spiders & Roses

Why Spiders Are Good

• Spiders don't eat plants. Instead, they're predatory and feast on other insects. They're helpful in reducing the number of plant-eating bugs in your garden. They're nondiscriminatory and will eat any bug they encounter. They paralyze or kill their prey and liquefy its insides for drinking by injecting it with venom.

Why Nonpredatory Mites are Bad

• Plant-eating mites destroy the leaves of rose bushes by sucking the sap out of leaf tissue. Stippling, bleaching and webbing, as well as leaves falling off, are signs of a mite infestation. Mites colonize on the undersides of leaves and spread to the top sides if their numbers increase. Because they're so small, you may not be able to see the mites, just the signs of their presence.

How to Tell the Difference Between Mites and Spiders

• Mites and spiders are arachnids, with eight legs. Mites, however, are extremely small, and can be difficult to see without a magnifying glass. The body of a spider has two distinct segments, but on a mite they're fused together, appearing to be one.

How to Get Rid of Mites

• Mites thrive in dry, dusty conditions. Increase the irrigation of your rose bushes with periodic leaf washing to reduce the number of mites. Avoid using insecticides to eliminate mites, because this can kill the natural predators of mites. Try releasing predatory mites in your garden to kill the plant-eating mites. Some types of predatory mites will eat each other once the plant-eating mites are gone.