My rose bush is covered with aphids so I soaked them with soapy water. Three days later I noticed it only helped a little. Do I break down and use poison or keep soaping.....Kirk

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

Answers

Well Kirk, I would take a soapy rag and squash the daylights out of those little brats by grasping the stem between two fingers all up and down the stems,ouch! watch out for thorns. Yah, I know this is alot of work, but I can't stand the thought of spraying poisons around to harm every little bug or bird that might come along and try to help out with the aphids.Or you can take the waterhose and blast them off. Is your rose bush in the greenhouse, I've never noticed aphids kill any plant that is outside, sooner or later a predator will take over. Well so much for my two cents. Good luck Kirk! Tren

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

Gee Kirk, wish I could send you some of the huge ladybug infestation we have!!! I am wondering if the ants will live at all around here with the amount of lady bugs we have. Someone said they were not "real" lady bugs that we have, but they sure look like it to me. I like Trend's idea. I do that to my roses also. Tryed the poison one year but hated every minute of using it and never did again.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

Another solution-UltraFine horticultural oil. Gardens alive has it.It is more highly refined than dormant oil.

Add baking soda to it for a fungicide. Can use it most of the summer except when very hot. We use it on tomatoes for blight and fruit trees as fungicide.Recipe was in Organic Gardening 3 0r 4 yrs ago.Will have to ask Better Half for quantities needed.

Saw something similar on CS a while back, using household oils,but don't know abt them burning plant in hot weather.Try a branch and see,if you want to use cooking oil. Check CS archives.

I've always had to use soap sprays repeatedly.Your choice.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

Kirk, aphids are stubborn and early this year! I have them attacking the new growth on my Lenten Roses (and they are tough to transplant and I have been babying these for two years now.) I have had to do repeated daily applications, but I think after a week, I have turned the corner. I also hand picked them off.

We have had so many ladybugs for the last (hmmm...I wonder...)seven years? (Was it a plague?) I don't have any around this year! They used to be so numerous that I had trouble painting the walls of my garage one year... they were all over it. Anyway, no aphids while they were around!

Wonder if there's a cycle. Or a West Coast thing?

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

I've heard of using a soapy spray or an oil/soap emulsion spray. The Gardens Alive guide (biased to their own products, of course) suggest Pyola (a pyrethrin in canola oil spray) for quick results. The oil products suffocate the aphids, the pyrethrin poisons them.

As others said above, ladybugs are the natural predator, but beware the Asian Ladybugs. These multiply to plague proportions, even at times of year when the native ladybugs are scarce (they seem to overwinter indoors!), so must be disturbing the ecosystem in some way!

The Gardens Alive catalog is a very useful guide to insects and diseases, even though we've never ordered from them we keep it as a reference (www.gardensalive.com or 812 537-8650)

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

I can't remember the difference between the Asian and other ladybug varieties. (My brain is full and I need to recycle it one of these days.) And the answer is....? Thanks!

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

btw, Thanks for the link. Lotsa information!

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

Lady beetles (bugs) don't eat aphids -- at least, not in their beetle phase. Their larvae do the dirty deed. They are one funky lookin' little critter. I'll try later to find a pic that I can link to. I believe that the Asian larvae also eat aphids, but I'll have to check. As with the adults, the larvae have similarities (Asian and American) but don't look exactly th same. We had long discussions on them, with some useful links back on CS forum, so you might check the archives -- probably under gardening or garden pests. A couple of years ago a volunteer (weed) burdock was attacked by aphids, and I discovered that there were lady bird beetle larvae eating them. So I left it alone to see what would happen. The aphids disappeared, then the larvae. I don't know where they go to pupate, so I didn't cut the burdock down until later, when it began to form the burrs.

Personally, in the absence of beetle larvae, I spray with insecticidal soap, either Safer's or Concern. There is soap in the mix, but my understanding is that it is to help with dispersion and sticking. The potassium salts are what kill the little suckers, dehydrates them. Or have you tried DE?

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

I'm studying for my Master Gardener final tonight, so I have the info about the Asian Lady Beetle right here. Here's a quote from the ID section:

"Identification would be easy if the Asian lady beetle had a consistent color pattern or number of spots that would seperate it from all other lady beetles. Unfortunately, it does not. Different color variations, from yellow to red and every shade in between, can be found within a single handful of beetles. Many of these beetles have black spots, some have many, some have few, and some have no spots at all. The Asian lady beetle looks like most other lady beetles (oval, convex, approximately 1/3 inch in length), but the most common identifying characteristic that Asian lady beetles share is a black 'M' inscribes on their thorax, just above the wing covers. Some M's are darker and more apparent than others, but their presence is almost always a good diagnostic tool."

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

Thanks guys! I'm armed and dangerous now! Let the spring bug wars begin!!!!!.....Kirk

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001