After Evan did such a great job pruning the roses, I hired him on full time as my rose care specialist. He is in charge of fertilizing, deadheading, and bug control. I am anticipating having wonderfully healthy roses all summer long!
April is the time for aphids. They are nasty little green bugs (sometimes brown or black) that suck all the life out of my roses. The good news is they are easy to get rid of. The best method I have found is to just squish them on the plant. My mom says that the live ones don't like the smell or look of the dead ones and stay away. Plus you know you got some. They're squashed! Most little kids LOVE to do this. Little kids will do this for free.
They also like the second best method. Spray the buggies off with a squirt bottle. Put a little dish soap with the water and the aphids won't be able to get back on your plant. Again, kids LOVE to do this. Evan particularly likes to do it with his squirt gun!
The last method is one we used for the first time this year. It was Evan's idea since now he's in charge. Again, he thought it sounded like fun. Ladybugs. They will eat 30+ of the little green bugs a day. So Evan wanted to buy a tub of them to release in our yard. He was going to spend part of his salary to buy them, but instead we bought them for him as his Easter gift. We all had so much fun putting them in the garden. You have to put them out at night, so the pictures are a little dark, sorry. And it was great to see the ladybugs eating away the next day! Emily LOVES them. She calls them Be Bugs!
9 comments:
Ladybugs!! That's a great idea!!
Christina,
I have been reading all your posts and thought I would surprise you finally and let you know how much I love your blog! I look forward to keeping up with what's new with you and your family. Margie
Thanks so much for commenting Margie! You are welcome to do so anytime. I honestly don't know who reads what I write unless they comment! We'll have to get the girls together again this summer when school and ballet die down!
I hate aphids. We do battle here. I tried ladybugs last year and they hung out for awhile and then disappeared. I want to try again though. The aphids have been awful this year and I was out of town for two weeks and they did some major damage. I usually do the soap thing...do you know if that hurts the lady bugs though? I am wondering if that might be the problem I had last year. I never knew the squishing thing and leaving their guts on there were deter new ones. I went out there today and did that...YUCKY...I need some gloves. I am such a girl when it comes to bugs. I can't wait until my boys are bigger and I can make them do it. Seth probably could but told me he wouldn't do that...only spray them. I will try the water gun thing that is a great idea. Jude would probably LOVE squishing them but I think he would probably destroy my plants in the process. So guess I need to get some new gloves and squish squish squish.
Bethany, the soap does not kill the aphids as far as I know. It just makes it slippery for them to get back on the plant. That's why I squish. You know they are dead! It is gross, but if you get them early enough they don't multiply and get out of hand.
hi, i found you! i blanked on the blog url, then remembered it just now. it was great talking after church. see you next week!
Christina,
I am so bad...I got some latex gloves and went a squishing today. EWWWW. But I can handle it when it isn't on my hands. HA HA. Thanks for the tip.
Hey is do you know is it thrips when the leaves are all wrinkled and shriveled up and curled? I need to take a pic probably but I have 10 iceberg roses in my front yard and all are fine except three which when I was out of town something happened. When I came back they looked awful. Funny thing is they were the ones that did really well last year. But the flowers look odd and they just don't look like they are growing right at all.
Bethany, I'm pretty sure that it is thrips. They seem to attack white and light colored roses especially. I don't know why. You can buy a systemic fertalizer that kills them. I've only had partal luck in getting rid of them though.
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