I have a water garden in a whiskey barrel and I am having problems with ants and aphids eating my water lettuce and water hyacinth. Especially the water hyacinth. How do I get rid of them? Also my water lettuce gets yellowy occasionally. I put de-chlorinator and plant food in occasionally but not too much. I also have a water pump going too. thanks!
Help! water garden has aphids
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/735967/
Recent thread discussing aphids......
Well I am a complete novice at this, but a couple weeks ago I noticed an aphid infestation on the plants in the water garden that came with the house we just bought. Lots and lots of them--I should have taken a picture!
The first book I could find said to hose them off and hope that the fish ate them before the scrambled back on again.
So, I immediately hosed them off that night and the following night.
This evening I thought I had better give them another hosing and realized that I have to really look to find any!
Now, just a day or two before I did the hosing-off, we had put in some 'mosquito dunks', and a day or two following the hosings my husband cut down some junipers that had been shading half the water garden which resulted in lots of dragonflies suddenly visiting it (or perhaps they had been all along, but now we could actually see them?).
Anyhow--that's all anecdotal, and I haven't had time to follow up and research, but it's possible that the hosing method worked in and of itself, that the fish actually ate them, that the mosquito dunks played a role, or that the dragonflies did (I was also considering getting some ladybugs to release there!).
I think that if you do not have any fish in your garden you can probably find a product to treat for the aphids if you are inclined to do that, or try the hosing method with a dunk--shouldn't hurt anything.
My guess is that the ants are probably attracted by the aphids and not the plants, but I'm not sure.
I'll check with my 9-year-old tomorrow--that's the kind of thing she always knows!
Teresa
thanks for all the help! I have been hosing and it seemed to have gotten rid of them. I still am having problems with my water lettuce getting yellowy. Not sure what it's deal is. Any advice would be helpful. thanks again!
I think I remember reading somewhere that water lettuce can get scorched if it is in the hot sun all day. . .
Ours was in the water garden but the fish (or something) were eating all the roots so we moved most of it to the bio-filter.
Teresa
I've had it in full AZ sun in summer before and it did great! It was in a side pocket to my pond though so they were all packed together and filtering, they loved it, got huge and flowered- first time I had seen that.
I hosed mine off too(i have a 10' stock tank for my pond) and let the water, and bugs run over and off the top of the water... seem to work for awhile, but didnt continue to do it periodically... I think if you did it, say twice a week for awhile, think it would work nicely.. ;0)
LeeAnn