Hi, I live in the Kootenays and we have lots of wild rose bushes in our town. They make very pretty flowers and are a good landscaping plant. However, I have mucho $$ worth of domestic roses on my property. I understand that wild rose bushes attract a fly that carries the Rose Rosette Disease virus. A small wild rose has just started itself on my property. Should I dig it out? Is RRD in our area? Do all wild roses attract this fly?
The vector is a mite and the problem is Hyper-virulent Rose Rosette, an intentionally cultured Frankenstein developed to clear Rosa multiflora out of forest lands elsewhere in North America. If you ever get it there you will know it, as your rose collection begins to look like you are spraying it with glyphosate. In the meantime I would definitely leave the wild roses alone.
