I live on a wooded, shady for the most part lot and have a lot of trouble with what I've always called 'mealy bugs'. They are white critters that jump around when I try to squish them, but leave a white trail on plant stems and tend to cluster. I've sprayed them with alcohol and water with some success, but now they are eating my new EarthKind roses and a friend who is a MG came by yesterday and said, "Oh, no, those must be leaf hoppers". I don't think she's right, but can anyone elucidate me on this and the best control?
Pat
Home Recipes for Brugs/Dats
pat,
................. Imho. Mealy bugs are like little tiny white fuzzy slugs .......Even slower ..........they do not fly or hop.
..............As to what your critterz are...... someone else will come up with the answer =)
could be white flies maybe ???
patdart, without seeing your little critters, I would say they are white flies and are miserable and hard to get rid of. Luckily for me I didn't have white flies in my GH over winter. When I did I used Safer Insecticidal soap, light oil for gardening type things, sometimes alcohol and sprayed every 3 or 4 days until they were gone. However another way is to spray with fairly strong stream of water especiallyon underside of leaves.
Leaf hoppers are about twice as large as white flies which are maybe 1/16 of an inch. white flies are white, here in this area leaf hoppers a a light yellowish green. hope this helps. Donna
I agree that it sounds like white flies. I had them in the house this year after purchasing some poinsettias. What a lot of trouble and I never did get rid of them. Once I put the plants outside, and we have had nothing but rain all spring, they seem to either be fairly well thinned out or maybe they have just spread out. LOL! They are hard to get rid of.
Gosh.. lol we must have really slow or laidback whiteflies here. I can smash them with my fingers. I even shake the leaves, and they just hang on. I do not like them one bit! :o)
This message was edited Jun 17, 2004 12:29 PM
Whiteflies are very tiny and usually on the underside of the leaves, if you rustle a bush with whiteflies they will fly up everywhere, like a cloud of whiteflies.
What she has does sound more like leafhoppers to me, but I am not sure what kind of damage leaf hoppers do.
Check this out
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/plantsci/landscap/e506w.htm
I had an outbreak of white flies this week, on one brug only. Since the crop duster thingy here, I hesitated to use anything 'strong', so I used MaVie's formula with the H202, used it three days in a row and the white flies are gone...I was very surprised and delighted!!!!
I tried alcohol/soap mixture; peroxide soap mixture and sprayed every three days -- the Richmond bugs thought it was dressing on a salad!
Sooo- (guiltily) I brought out my Sevin a week ago, put it in a pantyhose foot, and shook early in am; am beginning to get some new growth on my well laced plants.
I think some of my problem is slugs, so they are going to have some Corona in a bowl tonight. The whiteflies respond to an oil spray(they leave a sooty residue on your plants).
Hope you all won't think my use of Sevin unacceptable!
Polly, you have to do what you have to do! I finally broke down and dosed all mine with Bayer Systemic All in One. Big difference! But, I've always prided myself on being totally organic. Like I said in the first line. Good luck!
PS Sevin is one of the safer ones, I think :)
I have always tried to be somewhat organic,I just switched to Ortho systemic,I must say,my plants seem to like it.
Jerry Baker Wrote someting in one of his books once ,this is not a quote but something along the lines of ......
Your first line of defense and garden care can always be organic but if all else fails You will need to try chemicals or risk loosing plants, grass , trees , etc..
How long do the systemics take to work? I tried the granular Bayer about 5 days ago. The whiteflies are still alive & well. Have sprayed them for 2 days with the alcohol/soap mixture & even added a dash of Neem... tough little suckers, doesn't seem to have fazed them yet.
We always use Volck oil spray for mealybugs and whiteflies on our shrubs in the spring -- you can only use it every 60days.
2 TBL per gal of water.
Try it on one brug before spraying any more -- maybe someone has experience with spraying brugs with oil spray and can tell us if it is safe ---- ?
I haven't tried the Bayer granulated. I have dogs that unfortunately like to eat granulated fertilizer (I found out the hard way about a month ago), but I used the liquid concentrate (very tedious to do 70+ brugs since they are fed an exact quart each), but it took about a week to start working. On 3 brugs, it hasn't fazed the mites, but the rest of them are doing great. You have to re-apply every six weeks. Kell uses the Bayer systemic for trees on her brugs and I believe it is an annual application. I think mine are big enough now, that I'm going to switch to it next...
Thanks Gretchen, I'll just be patient. I did apply the granular to my 5-gallon potted ones too, just used 1/2 the amount for those planted directly in the ground. The spider mites that were on 2 seem to be totally gone, but those whiteflies... Anyway the plants tolerated the application very well and only one dropped a couple leaves afterward.
Eileen
Good Morning everyone,
just run across this thread and I am TOTALLY overwhelmed by the information , I even forgot my second cup of coffee :-)
I will print all of that Info.as soon as I get some more ink.
THANK YOU so very much Jeff and everybody else.PLEASE don't edit,
Brigitte
****
Has anyone used these recipes with roses ? and which recipe?
I have read this post twice and my head is reeling from all the information! I have a couple of questions: Is the H2O2 supposed to be used every time you water? Can it be added to any compost tea or any fertilizer solution being used, like the one Poppysue posted:
Use once a month.
1 gallon tepid water
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon household ammonia
1 teaspoon Epsom salt
1 teaspoon saltpeter
Does this apply to all plants?
Also,the recipe Poppysue posted calls for 1 tsp of baking powder. On the site delecie posted http://groups.msn.com/ASquareFootGardening/bugzapstonics.msnw there is an almost identical recipe (the one for non-flowering house plants) but it calls for baking soda rather than baking powder. What would be the difference?
One last question: I am growing my first brugs this year. They are in large pots in full sun. My Charles Grimaldi looks great and has buds. My Pink Frosty has it's first bloom just opening. In the last few days its leaves have developed pinpoint dots of yellow on them. I don't think it is an insect problem - I suspect a mineral deficiency. Both spring and summer have been extremely wet here. The CG and PF are in the same size pots but the CG is 3 times as big as PF and able to handle more moisture. Any ideas? Thanks.
NoH2O,
I think it was a typo ? Baking powder is composed of 3 ingredients
Baking soda
Cream of tartar (acid to activate the soda)
Cornstarch , as a filler , spreader (inert)
BUMP
These recipes are great
bump
Hello Monika,
where is Your secret recipe ? :-)))...please tell us how You accomplish / manage such BEAUTIFUL Brugmansia Trees ?
Viele liebe Gruesse,
Brigitte
*( means ....many dear greetings )
What does BUMP mean ?
I see it quite often in the threads I am reading,sometimes just the Word Bump.....Bump it to the Top ? and /or keep the Topic activ ?
keep the Topic activ
Or if theres good information that others find useful maybe from years ago, it gets bumped.
Thank You :-)...so I was on the right track,
Brigitte
This is a great thread...
I checked at CVS pharmacy tonight and they can special order saltpeter. I will let you know how much it is and how mnay ounces, when if comes in on Friday.
Sandy
Saltpeter is potassium nitrate. the same that is used in preserving meats for sausage.
I get saltpeter at Walgreens drugs :-)
If you soak pepper seeds overnight in water/saltpeter solution they germinate faster and more of them!
Hi brugie this summer i had a terrible time with spider mites. i use systemic and fertilizer combined ortho rose. it did well i like the systemic i also would use peters 20/20. i did try alfalfi pellets without the mollasses and yeast and it aalso worked well my plants are hughe. bob
I'm glad you had such good luck with the systemic. I just hope that when it is time to bring things in, the white flies in Iowa take a trip to a warmer climate where no one is growing brugs. Mites haven't been a big problem this year in Iowa. I had a few on a couple of versi's, but everything seems to be okay right now. Maybe it is too cold for them. It is only 55 degrees as I type this. I guess the weather is telling me that fall is on the way.
Shirley, we're bombarded with white flies this year. I've never seen so many and nothing has seemed to phase them. I read where Susie said to touch them with an acohol Q-tip but I'd be touching from now to eternity to get all these.
Ada, I'm so afraid I'll bring them into the house and have to fight them all winter. I think they actually killed my arborea last winter. There is no way I could get them with a Q-tip if they are like last year. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get rid of them before the big move to inside.
Good luck to you, Shirley. I've sprayed a little of everything trying to get rid of them. Before I take anything inside, I'm going to hose it off and make sure I don't see anything and spray them with something. LOL I sure don't want to take any of them into the greenhouse.
From what I have read, you are supposed to mist your plants every day in the winter. Supposed that would help, but what a mess.
If spraying doesn't get them, I'm thinking that a misting would just displace them for a while. I don't know. It's the eggs that I can't get rid of and so the cycle just keeps repeating itself.
Shirley, I guess we're going to have to get each one and wash each leaf to get rid of the eggs.
To many leaves. Might be easier to just strip all the leaves except the growth point, spray it well and hope for the best.
I vote for that. In Ca, when my hibiscus were covered with aphids, I just whacked them back and there was no problem anymore. Of course, back then, I didn't know they were aphids. LOL
Sounds like a good idea, Shirley. LOL