Greenfly, whitefly aphids and other garden pests

[moose]

It's that time of year again. The few things which are left standing after the voracious slug/nail invasion last week are now covered in greenfly. Does soap and water spray work, or is there anything better which won't kill birds/cats etc?

 

[bosco]

washing up liquid and water always worked for me. but i only ever used it in a greenhouse, dunno if it's harmful to birds.

 

[geminisnake]

If you use ecological washing up liquid as the soap it should be less harmful for the environment.

Are the plants affected able to be put inside a poly bag??
The reason I ask is that I have used the bag and cigarette method to kill greenfly on potted plants, though it's not the most ecological way to do things
Basically cover plant with bag, light ciggy and blow smoke into bag, or light ciggy and hold in bag.
Leave for a while(I left mine overnight) and lo the greenfly are dead. It will kill any good beasties too though.

 

[moose]

Will eco washing up liquid kill greenfly?

I'll give the ciggy method a go. But knowing my luck they'll thrive on menthols. Give the neighbours something to talk about anyway.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

is there anything better which won't kill birds/cats etc?

Mother nature knows best

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Here is a nice close up of what our friends, ladybirds, do to aphids:

Chomp Chomp

 

[Blonde Fury]

I've mostly been removing them by hand, which I suppose is kind of gross, but at least doesn't hurt anything but the bloody aphids. This weekend, we'll be planting some stuff to attract hoverflies, which will help take care of the little bastards. The spouse sprays the roses with washing up liquid and water, and when he has the hosepipe out, he hits them with a hard stream of water, which also helps.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I've mostly been removing them by hand, which I suppose is kind of gross, but at least doesn't hurt anything but the bloody aphids. This weekend, we'll be planting some stuff to attract hoverflies, which will help take care of the little bastards. The spouse sprays the roses with washing up liquid and water, and when he has the hosepipe out, he hits them with a hard stream of water, which also helps.

Forgot about hoverflies - another friendly beastie

Another idea to protect roses is to plant wild garlic or lavender in between the bushes - lots of insects hate the smell of these, so leave well alone

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Do not get baccy near tomatoes......that's possibly wot deaded all Stigs tomatoes last year.....

 

[Louloubelle]

ladybird larvae look scary and disgusting but chow down on aphids all day long so are in fact beautiful.

you can buy them here:

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=61_183&products_id=1192

bit pricey though.

alternatively you can look for them on less infested areas and carefully pick them up (best to pick up the leaf they are on so as not to damage them) and transfer them to the infested plant.

PS larvae pictured are from australia and NZ, british ones look the same but may not have the pale markings.

pretty grim looking eh? but to aphids these are the exterminator so more power to them. plus they grow up to be ladybirds so they can't be all bad.



PS once you have got them established, obvioulsy don't expose them to any toxins. If you wanna kill aphids with baccy make sure you rescue any ladybugs 1st

good luck!

 

[Mrs Magpie]

A really good picture of a Hoverfly larva eating an aphid from www.mybitoftheplanet.com
I love that site.

 

[jerseymonkey]

Little bastards they are - my rose is COVERED with them and no matter how many i kill they come back. I think though that my ecover spray cleaner fluid seemed to do a good job of killing them. Think I might go out and squish some more now to be sure.

 

[Blonde Fury]

Ah, good to hear the Ecover works, because I'm about to mix up a batch. Our hybrid musk roses are just covered with the vile things, and every time I walk up to admire all the beautiful, healthy new growth, I end up crushing thousands of the goddamn things.

 

[Louloubelle]

french marigolds attract hoverflies, which also luuurve to eat aphids.

check this link out, it pictures some horrible looking bugs that you should actually welcome inot the garden cos they are aphid killing machines.



http://images.google.com/imgres?img...id+&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=G

the dried out husk of a dead aphid after a parasitic wasp larvae has eaten it from the inside out. Marvellous!

 

[farmerbarleymow]

the dried out husk of a dead aphid after a parasitic wasp larvae has eaten it from the inside out. Marvellous!

Isn't nature wonderful - how many nasty ways it has devised of killing things

 

[Louloubelle]

nature rocks!
you have to look after your parasitic wasps though
feed them with honey and they'll masacre even more aphids
http://www.ghorganics.com/Honey Boosts Effectiveness of Parasitic Wasps.htm

a problem to be aware of is that ants keep aphids and milk them of their sweet secretions as if they were herds of minuature cattle. the ants will kill any ladybird larvae that attack their herds, so you have to kill the ants.

ants milking honeydew from aphids

I found a good way to kill ants is to harvest the ants and put them in an old empty fish tank with lots of other ants from a different colony (black ants vs red ants is good). Hours of fun watching them fight each other.

We had to make our own entertainment before playstation you know

 

[Stig]

Do not get baccy near tomatoes......that's possibly wot deaded all Stigs tomatoes last year.....

Well worth repeating... it's true, this; tobacco, butts or smoke must all be kept well away from tomatoes!

Luckily, Upstairs neighbour seems to have stopped emptying her ashtrays by tipping the contents off her balcony (and straight onto mine ) so I might be ok this year.

That smoke-and-bag method worked a treat on my parsley, cheers for the tip Geminisnake! The aphids just seemed to drop off too, which is a bonus. With the washing up liquid method I just got lots of dead brown sticky aphids stuck all over the plants last year. Didn't fancy the basil and parsley much after that.

 

[moose]

Any excuse to smoke in the garden, then. I'm going to try the ciggy method later.

 

[Bomber]

Bird feeders !

............... Just put as many up as you can and attract the best garden pest suppresant known to man. It works, the birds eat the pests whilst waiting their turn at the feeder 'cause a sparrow can't make up his mind whether or not to go large !!!

 

[moose]

Hmmmm, a Happy Meal for the cats.

That's part of the problem - it's a bird free zone on our street, as the place is ruled by cats.

 

[Mooms]

I did all the honeysuckle with washing up liquid/water spray last week..absolutely masses of greenfly on there..but I made the daft mistake of doing it when the sun was baking..erm..so i think all the leaves got scorched..not good

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I let them do what they like on the honeysuckles, which don't seem to mind aphids too much. The theory, not yet proven, is that having a large aphid population up there will attract lots of useful predators into our garden, while I focus my efforts on keeping them from getting out of control on the roses.

We've got quite a lot of roses in a fairly confined space, so aphid control is important at this time of year. The trick is to prevent population explosions.

Mostly this just means squishing zillions of them by hand on my daily rounds (and hopefully remembering to wash the bug-juice off my fingers before rolling a cigarette!) If there's a bad infestation building up on a rose, or something else that they can really affect, then I do resort to soap spray. I try to make sure I get the soap on the underside of the leaves to get mini-aphids too, not just the herd of them attacking young leaves and buds.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Hmmmm, a Happy Meal for the cats.

That's part of the problem - it's a bird free zone on our street, as the place is ruled by cats.

Kill the cats - problem solved

Or get a dog to eat the cats

 

[Dhimmi]

Buy ladybirds and release them in your garden, plot, acres, formal gardens etc.
cheers,

 

[aqua]

Do they harm plants or do they just take over?

I saw my lime mint plant had little things on which I assume were greenfly and white fly

apart from wiping them off and shouting at them, is there anything else I should do?

 

[Isambard]

Get ladybirds to move in, they eat the little bastards.

 

[dirtysanta]

Do they harm plants or do they just take over?

I saw my lime mint plant had little things on which I assume were greenfly and white fly

apart from wiping them off and shouting at them, is there anything else I should do?

Whitefly eat the plant sap making them weak and can introduce plant viruses. can kill it if its aint treated. Same for greenfly (but not 100% sure)

 

[mr steev]

Spraying them with water and washing up liquid will get rid of them

 

[aqua]

cool thanks

*prepares for mission tonight*

 

[Epicurus]

An old boy who used to live near me grew Cannabis plants between his tomato plants to keep the green and white fly’s off them and he swore it worked for him and he was never short of people to clear out his greenhouse after the tomato plants did there stuff.