How to get of lichen from rose bushes

I have just started to prune our rose bushes and quite a few have lots of lichen growing up the base of them. Can I spray them with something to kill it but not kill the roses.

I wire brush mine on the main stems & then use a toothbrush sized wire brush sized one to get around the branches (bunnings etc stock for stripping paint etc). Done early enough it seems to encourage shoots from the base, left too late it will knock new growth off.

Lime Sulfur spray is meant to get rid of lichen. Read the instructions and spray in winter only when the plant is dormant.

u are pruning way too early. In 6w time the new shoots will appear and be killed off with frosts

Why do you want to get rid of it? It does the plant no harm and is a good sign you have clean air.

Lichen on my old apple trees damage the bark. It seems to cause splits. I spray the apple trees to kill the lichen. Haven't had a similar problem with my roses, but I imagine it can't be good for a rose bush either.

Lichen does no harm to plants. It is a sign that your plants are not doing well, eg not growing fast enough due to many reasons, but it won't harm them. Splits are probably due to cicada damage.

Wet and Forget type products are ideal for killing lichens but no damage to the plant.One of the cheapest is pool winteriser available from Warehouse, dilute 1 to 10 litres water and apply with spray or watering can.

This.

ps to say do it when the sun is shinning.

Rubbish it strangles them slowly & surely.

I suggest you do some googling, in most cases lichen does no harm to its host and does not receive any benefits from the host either. The only thing advantageous for the lichen is a place to perch and live its lifecycle. If it were a fungus then the situation would be very different.

Double rubbish,

Please provide some evidence for this statement

look at the trees.

It's dark at the moment but I know that the lichen covered trees and plants in my garden are doing fine. What is your point? How does a lichen "strangle" a tree? Does the organism penetrate the bark and cut off the pholem? What exactly is the mechanism?

Ruud Kleinpaste says that lichen does no harm to plants and is purely cosmetic - leave it where it is - it is a sign that the air in your neighbourhood is clean. It would be impossible for lichen to strangle a tree - bark is much stronger than lichen and lichen could not possibly penetrate it.

Lichen has very strong roots, they penetrate rocks so I imagine bark would be no problem

It cuts off sunlight and in my observation interferes with pollination budding and new growth, But hey having grown lichen sensitive tree crops such as tamarillos commercially, what would I know. Just have a gander at the mess it will make on your roof, see how it peels the coating off the decramastic tiles leaving gaps in the coating up to 100mm across and ask Rudd if its good for them too.

How is sunlight beneficial to bark unless you want it to get a tan. I thought only green parts of plants used sunlight. And just guessing here but bark can be shed and for roofing coatings that is not adviseable.

Many plants tamaillos being one, and I' m guessing by the green stems of most roses, that they be another rely somewhat on their green stems for photosynthesis in the juvenile state.

And. with acknowledgements to UCLA.

LENTICELS
The initial periderm is interrupted at points around the stem by the occurrence of lenticels (Latin lentis, a lentil). These are blister-like, lenticular breaks in the surface. Most often, a lenticel on a stem forms where a stomate once occurred. The lenticel phellogen forms from cells interior to the stomate (lining the substomatal chamber) and is also connected with the adjacent cork cambium. From the lenticel phellogen cells are also produced to the outside and inside, but the outer cells tend to round up and thereby have intercellular air spaces (Phellem usually has no intercellular air spaces.), so that the tissue inside the lenticel is more loosely packed (filling tissue or complementary tissue). The cells of the lenticel also tend to expand outside the stem, yielding that blistered appearance. Each lenticel therefore becomes a pathway through which gases (especially oxygen) can diffuse to the living cells of the bark. Without sufficient oxygen, cells of bark can die.
Lenticels also can be found on fruits, e.g., the specks on apples and pears and warts on avocado.

· GREEN STEMS Species with photosynthetic stems almost always are able to capture sufficient sunlight when development of the opaque initial periderm is delayed or totally suppressed. A stem can contribute significantly to total carbon uptake of the plant only if stomates are present at a substantial density, and can remain functional over several years.
o Stem succulents, such as cacti and euphorbs, have a long delay in the initiation of periderm. These stems do not tear or split because the epidermis undergoes extra cell divisions during its formation for increasing the surface area. Instead, periderm formation occurs primarily in response to stress and injury, e.g., sun damage along rib margins. When periderm forms, it typically arises from the outermost layer of cortex and requires a long time to encircle the axis. In many arborescent cacti, for example, only the trunk is fully covered by scaly bark.
o Photosynthetic old stems, such as palo verdes (Cercidium and Parkinsonia aculeata), over many years experience cell divisions of the epidermis, cortex, and phloem, thereby increasing stem surface area while stem circumference increases without disturbing the operations of the stomates. Even a fully mature palo verde may have very little bark formation on the trunk. Many shrubs of desert and semiarid habitats have photosynthetic stems that remain green for several years before developing the initial periderm.
o Many families with both herbs and shrubs have woody species with thick stems that are partially green for more than a year. Especially herbaceous plant groups tend to show a long delay in full acquisition of bark (example: Tithonia diversifolia).
o Certain bottle trees form green trunks that very slowly develop stripes or patches of periderm (Ceiba and other Bombacaceae, Fouquieria columnaris, Brachychiton rupestris). There may, in fact, be no carbon uptake by these green stems, because they lack functional stomates, but green tissues can obtain energy via the light reaction and recycle internal carbon dioxide, which was generated by cell respiration of the bark cells. Even a fully mature tree may still have patches of green on the trunk.
o Some species possess smooth, tight or peeling, thin, nearly transparent outer bark hiding a deeper layer of green, photosynthetic tissue. These species do not appear to have photosynthetic stems, because the surface bark is tan to red (examples: Bursera, Pachycormus, Jatropha spp.).

It's an amazing life form, and many of our native lichens are seriously endangered. The colour and form range among them is truly wondrous. I started studying them ages back looking for dye stuff and soon came to appreciate the precious things.

Lichen, fungi, moss all totally fascinating life forms and all with different purposes. Even just taking a very close look at them without any in depth knowledge they are beautiful.

Does anyone understand this in total?

no,all i thought was ,good one pestri knows how to cut and paste?