The great aphid massacre

[platinumsage]

Yeah wait till you've poisoned an entire ant's nest, tricking the worker ants into taking home poison to feed to their children. I will burn in hell for my crimes against formicanity.

That's not the way to look at it. You're giving final blissful liberation to the multitude from their demon queen slave master.

 

[teuchter]

I thought that come the winter, the aphids might hibernate, or die, or go to sleep, or turn into something else, or move underground, or just generally GO AWAY OR STOP MULTIPLYING in some form.

But no.

In the spring I plan to construct and rule over the largest ladybird colony in south London; perhaps the world.

 

[two sheds]

neem oil/washing up liquid also works for red spider mite, the lethal predator of certain high-value plants

 

[teuchter]

I attack them regularly with a washing up liquid mix, which is quite effective in killing the ones that it reaches, but if even one of them escapes, there are a million of them again next time I look.

It's literally worse than the Covid pandemic.

 

[iona]

I released a load of lacewing larvae in the summer and aphids went from being A Problem to just a minor irritation you had to actually go looking for to be annoyed at.

 

[Saul Goodman]

I thought that come the winter, the aphids might hibernate, or die, or go to sleep, or turn into something else, or move underground, or just generally GO AWAY OR STOP MULTIPLYING in some form.

But no.

In the spring I plan to construct and rule over the largest ladybird colony in south London; perhaps the world.

Have you considered putting a lock on your plants?

 

[teuchter]

The 2021 generation aphids have already started engaging in an atrocity against a small maple tree I have growing in one of my containers. That'll be why it started putting its leaves out and then seemed to have stalled in that state for the past week or so. I've sprayed it all with some home-made death spray but have also just ordered 100 ladybird larvae. I believe the ladybird strategy may have a low chance of success but it'll provide some level of lockdown distraction at least. I'll report back.