What is the best thing to spray

Hi horseshoe, it was the type of Neem. I went out and bought the good stuff (dyna-gro) and my gardenias are fine with it. Just wear something to cover your nose. Boy does that stuff stink!!!

I've grown accustomed to the smell of pure Neem, as it is my pesticide of choice. If you use it indoors, be prepared for the house to smell like rotten onions for a day or so. In a weird sort of way, I kinda like the smell now. Neem is like an old friend now. :)

GH

I noticed a list upthread of plants that are supposed to be "sensitive" to neem applications, but in my practical experience, I've yet to see an adverse reaction by any plant to applications of cold-pressed neem oil at the rate of 1 tsp/L of liquid (water or water/ isopropyl alcohol mix).

Of the plants on the list, I've personally applied neem oil to:
African Violet
Begonia
Crown of Thorns
(some) Ferns
Geranium
Ivy
Jade plant (portulacaria - mini-jade)
Schefflera
with nothing in the way of ill affects, and wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Al

Indoorgardner, thanks for that update...glad you got the good stuff! Now, as for that smell, guess we all better come up with a great air purifier when Neem is used indoors, eh?

Al, thanks for that list. I'll be spraying some gardenias in the greenhouse this weekend (have been saying that for a week!) to halt the scale and 'black sooty mold' I keep witnessing on some of the plants.

Shoe, (a bit exhausted from potting up 210 gardenia rootings these past couple days, and loving every minute of it!)

Hey does anyone know if Neem will kill Beneficial Nematodes? I put some "Scanmask" in my pots to kill of those nasty fungal gnats about two weeks ago. I usually spray my plants with Neem as a preventative as well as a leaf cleaner. I am wondering if I should hold off to make sure the Nematodes have time to finish up there job.

Just to note the success I've had with Immunox, figured it was worth posting about. This stuff has worked better than anything I've ever tried. It has successfully killed aphids, spider mites, and even greatly reduced a scale infection on a BOP I have. Nothing else worked as well as this has. I would use Neem, but my plants only show infections in the winter while indoors, so I can't spray the Neem on them there. Everything we grow is a tropical of some sort, mostly larger foliage plants.

Despite the warnings on Immunox about use in doors, I have had no issues with it inside our apartment. Granted I haven't drowned any plant in the stuff, but I have used it extensively on several plants. It's not very strong in odor and our pets are all still fine (despite limited interaction with our plant room on their part), so it seems safe for use inside when done right.

Just thought I'd post about it. It's been a miracle for us on our tropicals in the winter.

keonikale, can you look and see what the main/active ingredient in Immunox is, please?

I have some Ortho "sytemic insect killer", formerly known as "Isotox" and was just wondering if they have the same ingredients

Thanks for your input!

Shoe.

OK, direct from the label.

Active Ingredients:
Myclobutanil (0.012%)
Permethrin (0.020%)
Other Ingredients (99.968%)


Additional label info:
Total Nitrogen (.2%)
Available Phosphate (.2%)
Soluble Potash (.2%)

Great! Many thanks!

That's different from what I bought. I'm familiar with permethrin but not the first ingredient you listed.

When I see some results, whether good or bad, I'll check back in with this systemic.

Thanks for taking the time to look that up for me, I'm grateful.

Shoe.

Thanks for great info in this thread from 2006! I just had the "Green Light" brand Neem (concentrated; mix 2 tablespoons per gallon of water) recommended, bought it, used it this morning early, applied it at the recommended ratio, and used the entire pint of the stuff all over my gardens. I had some pests in one area only but treated all areas. I'll go outside tomorrow to see if any plants were damaged, but I applied to everything that didn't move!

The odor was slightly fruity, almost perfumey, so I guess they have "cleaned it up" by now....over 2 years later? Or perhaps that is just the Green Light brand. I notice it is from San Antonio, Texas, so y'all might not have access to it.

That's what I had Connie, it's not pure Neem. Unless they've changed it.

Debbie

FWIW - the benefits of the green light brand should be considered to be much closer to a suffocant, and the effects are more like what you would get by spraying a horticultural oil. The steam extraction process to get the clarified oil eliminates the very reason we buy neem - the effects of azadirachtin, which is the anti-feedant, oviposition deterrent (anti-egg laying), (insect) growth inhibitor, mating disrupter, and chemosterilizer that makes cold-pressed neem oil such a safe and valuable addition to our list of pest control options.

Al

Wow...I hope the stuff does its thing, whatever it is. The owner (manager?) of Great Outdoors in Austin recommended it.
It took me 3 hours to spray everything in my yard, and that's with a pressurized can sprayer.

Horticultural oil will still smother a fair number of bugs so I'm sure it'll do something, you've just lost some of the additional benefits that the regular smelly neem products would have. Although I don't know that you'll see much benefit from spraying it in the areas where you weren't seeing insect problems, you could probably save yourself some time and money by just spraying near where you're seeing problems next time.

The bottle said if you already Had bugs to spray every 7 days until they were gone. But for a preventative, spray every 2 weeks. ??? Is this NOT a preventative?

I really don't know how long it would last, but if they say it will be a preventative for 2 wks though I assume it must stick around and work. But if you're the sort of person who is regularly out in the garden anyway, you can probably save yourself a lot of time and energy if you keep an eye out for bug problems and spray the problem areas at the first sign of them rather than spending 3hrs every 2 wks spraying everything (most bug problems aren't that hard to deal with if you catch them early). If the majority of your garden is infested with stuff then maybe it's worth spraying everything but it sounded like you just had one area that there was a problem. Also if it prevents bad bugs, keep in mind that it's preventing many good bugs too, so again for that reason I'd keep the spraying to areas where there actually are problems.

I just today discovered the same scale (? a little bug that looks like a sand dollar...very tiny....very white) on Ixora plants on the opposite side of the pool.