Grrrrr - These Evil Yellow Aphids!

I think I'm fighting a losing battle here. My Tropical Milkweed has been invaded by these tiny demons!

for weeks I've been battling them, using water almost daily to blast them off of my plants only to have them regroup and attack the very next day!

Should I leave them? Should I just continue with water blasting? HELP!!!

Cue it's kind of a losing battle, I have come to grips with the fact that I/we won't win. So I put out a few more plants.to make sure the cats have what they need.

I tried bringing in ladybugs and that worked temporarily. Until they left me. I am unaware of any remedies that won't affect the cats.

Sorry!

Ive given up. I havent seen any butterflies this year and at this point, trying to fight aphids off is pointless. lol

I gently wash the little bugs off the plants every time I water with a garden hose. Catch them early is the key. Once they're off the plant and on the ground, they can't return and dry out and disappear.

I do wash them off and they hit the ground... but I have seen them crawl either right back up the stem and even crawl up another plant close by. in any case, they are right back the next day.

Hummm, once they hit the ground, maybe you can spray them with a mixture of mild soap and water? In my case, I think the eggs hatches a few days later, and re-infested the same plant. Luckily they're not wide spread for me. Wish you alot of lucks.

I've taken a wash cloth and run it up and down the stems and leaves to wash them off. Then, I dip the cloth in a bucket of water to make sure they drown. Of course, make sure you gather any caterpillars first and get them safely out of the way! They'll still come back, but it seems like you can kill greater quantities by squishing and drowning.

Melanie

I hold the affected stem(s) to keep them stable and hit them with the jet setting on my hose. They get blasted into next week and don't crawl back up on the plant. It might help that I aim them at the boiling hot concrete that borders my flower bed....and I do it during the hottest part of the day just to make myself feel better. Last year I used chemicals, both topical and systemic, but I think this water blasting has worked better for me so far. If it only worked on mealy bugs! Hehe.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Russell

Just because it's the safety of the environment, and the butterfly garden. I try to avoid chemicals at best as I could. Russell, I'm glad you've success with the blasting method as well. Hah Mealy bugs are a different story. I whine wound up having to sacrify my flower stalk, whichever the plant that may be infested by them. Their eggs too will reinfest soon there after though. Tough bugs! Melanie, glad that hand removal works for you as well.

editted for mispelled error, or was that the Freudian's slip for whine, whine, and whine. Just a thought.

This message was edited Jun 21, 2011 12:01 PM

I' ve acquiesced to having to water blast them
every other day. I have so many Milkweed tho, that it takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to blast each individual flower head.... But what else can I do really lol.

... And the battle rages on!

Do you cut back your milkweed at any point? If the aphids are so bad that you don't have any caterpillars, it might be worth it just to cut the stems back and start over. I've had to do that before when it gets really bad.

Melanie

I've cut them back twice, but I left them to bloom so that I can collect seed. I'll continue to battle aphids until I've collected enough seed, then I'll let it go....lol.

We hand wash them also, and then at the end of the year cut every plant off, and throw them on a bonfire. that seems to keep them down a little here.

it seems cutting them back makes it worse, because then the aphids infest the new growth...

cue_chik makes a good point. The aphids are most often found on young growth or at the flowers terminal stalks. Get them early in the season is the key. Beside, at the end of the season. The cold weather will get them anyhow. Unless you bring them in the greenhouse, then the problem is multiplied 10 folds. Yikes!

LOL... cold season also kills off the Tropical Milkweed here in Central FL. Right now, I'm just washing them off every other day and hoping that the seed pods develop normally... I think that's about all I can do :(

Here I've begun to harvest my tropical MW seedpods. The swamp MW makes big leaves but no sign of flowers yet. If only the Monarch will come.

Once about the time I start to cut back the MW to deter the aphids, I notice the first instar queens and Monarchs, so I no longer do that. I squish with gloved hand only after checking for eggs and larva.
I wonder if when the aphids just starts going before bfs show up if you were to dump soapy water at the base of the plant it would help?

Cue_Chik, I wonder if you tried a combination of "Bayer Advanced" that gets poured into the soil and also "Fungicide 3 spray" that gets sprayed onto the leaves of plants if that wouldn't help control your insect problem :]
Use those two things every 2 weeks for three months.

Why would you use insecticide on a plant that is the favored larval host plant for the monarch? Of all my milkweeds they prefer the curassavica. Seems counter-intuitive. Am I missing something?

Well said Amanda. I was out checking on my garden general health. With a pruner handy, I saw some dense population aphids on a new MW, so I deadheaded those seedpods and flowers that those aphids were on. One effective to pest control without hurting the environment.

I suppose you need to examine your purpose for growing milkweeds to begin with. I would rather not grow any than to use systemic insecticides or sprays. If you don't like the aphids pull out your milkweed rather than kill the precious few monarchs that rely on them as habitat throughout their North American migration.

My understanding is the best natural "remedies" can't eliminate aphids, just try to control their numbers/spread. Towards the end of the season, my swamp milkweed is so thick with them I just give up. The plants slowly cave in, but they are so giant there is still foliage for cats if they are there/if I need it.

The curassavica, being an annual here, I can't be so cavalier if I want them to last. My objective is not for them to flower, necessarily, but to grow into big enough plants to satisfy the demand for their foliage. Cutting buds/flowers off is effective to remove aphids.

Spraying with water does reduce their numbers.

Removing by hand with gloved hand, as said above, paper towels or tissues is the most effective method. They are easily squished. I have sprayed with simple soapy water. The aphids turn black almost overnight. The first year i did that on the swamp milkweed, I was surprised a week or so later to find tiny cats on them. I don't know that cats are immune to soapy water spray, so I am sparing with that solution.

A.

Hummingbirds eat aphids and other small insects. Although most of their diet is nectar, they need the protein that insects provide. So, there's another reason not to use pesticides in a wildlife garden.

Not to mention a whole host of other beneficial insects!

Excuse me.

Forests - like I said - depends on why we plant the stuff to begin with. I was yanking out coneflowers today by the roots due to a bacterial infection (?) called aster yellows that has no cure.

It's not like me to take out plants like that, but I don't have enough space to have an infirmary, nor enough patience to nurse plants that can't be fixed. That's why I try to stay with natives which are acclimatized to our conditions, but that coneflower thing, eweeeeee. :/

Welcome LoveForest....A lot of us began our gardens with pesticides and etc. No problem mentioning it. It does need to be pointed out though that since this is a forum for Butterfly gardening most of those that post here no longer use them around plants that may be frequented by or host plants for our critters. We try to find ways to control those that destroy the plants that we are growing for the butterflies without causing their demise in the process.

Ok, well, goodluck, especially in the "south". The trillions of destructible insects will 'kill-off' your flowers and plants.
But, anyway, goodluck with it all, and take good care.

You also, happy gardening!

Will the yellow aphids kill the butter fly eggs or caterpillars? Or just slowly kill the milkweed? And will monarchs not lay eggs on aphid infested Milkweed?

Thanks!

Sean O.

Sean:

1) aphids do not kill monarch eggs or caterpillars
2) aphids are "sucking" insects and do just that to your milkweeds
3) I have seen monarch eggs on aphid infested milkweed. If you collect cats to raise and cut from your MW to feed them, make sure there are no monarch eggs on the MW, but rinse or clean the MW of the aphids before you offer to the cats. You want to keep the cat's environment as clean as possible to prevent infiltration of disease, virus, fungus, pests, or prey critters.

Hope this helps. :)

A.

Thanks Amanda for your help! Sean O.

I was reading about ants last night (unrelated) and read that aphids secret a sweet, sticky substance which is why ants and aphids can be found together - it is a symbiotic relationship!

Pretty cool.

A.

p.s. That is not to say that the existence of aphids in any quantity on any plant of mine is acceptable! And they are present - in large numbers - on my swamp MW. :/

Hmmm, those stinkers aphids prefer my Mexican MW instead. In regarding symbiotic relationship b/w ants and aphids, I think ants are developing the similar relationship with mealybugs? Everywhere I see those argentina ants (the sweet/black ants), I also see mealybugs. Grrrrrrr! My butterflies garden is being invaded by these powdery white soft-body bugs that are hard to rid off. Aphids, hummingbirds will eat them. But the "white balls" mealybugs seems to have equipped themselves with the powdery substance no other insects find it pallatible?

I am so drawn to those swamp MW, but so far I've one for several years (in partial shade) without flowers. Just big healthy leaves but no flowers! Is shade a problem with this species?

I've mentioned before that the swamp MW can take several years before it blooms. Mine were 3rd or 4th season and finally had small blooms this year.

I think they prefer full sun and of course moist conditions. Not sure about shade/part shade. I would think they could handle some shade especially if the moisture level was not as high as it would like.

I did read something about mealworms in that article too, though they are not an issue here.

Back to the garden! :)

A.

Lily I sure wouldn't describe the swamp MW having large leaves. Mine looks like the foliage on the left in this pic without blooms. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/202739 Is that the one you have?

Har har - that's what mine look like without the blooms OR leaves.

Sheila, I meant to take a pix of the plant, and kept forgetting. Here it's. See the leaves are almost twice, if not 3x wider than the mexican MW.

My crazy hummingbirds are getting aggressive. They come up right to my face to say hello. This morning I was standing in the front landscape talking to the hummer in front of me when another came by to tell it to get out of his territory. I thought they were both going to run into me. Sharon

Oooh! Sharon be careful you don't get knocked over. ;)