Can anyone identify these insects?

I have recently started doing bonsai and purchased some trees at Wal-Mart to start as bonsai. They are in 1 gal. containers and I have them all together in one area of the yard. I have also started some cuttings in a mixture that our bonsai club recommends. (30% top soil; 30% sphagnum peat; 40% oil dry -- similar to cat litter)
The cuttings in my own mixture are fine and thriving. However, the plants that I got from Wal-Mart have become infested with some kind of tiny insect that lives in the soil around the roots. They look like very tiny ants but some of them have wings and some do not. Some of them fly. I have found zillions of them around the roots of my plants.
I got a five gallon bucket, filled it with water and put the infested trees into the water to about an inch up the trunk and left them over night. The next day I removed as much of the soil from around the roots as I could and re-planted using my soil mixture.
And plants that I found infested I have segregated from my others.
I am wondering if they might be sand gnats? The soil Wal-Mart uses is very sandy and sand gnats are horrible in this part of Florida. They do not appear on the trunks or foliage. I would never have found them if I wasn't carefully looking at the root systems to see if they needed re-potting.
If I knew what they are I could figure out what to do about them! Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated.

By any chance do you have a friend or a relative who could take a photo of your bugs and they could send it to you in your e-mail and then you could post it for everybody to try and take a peek? If you can't, that's totally understandable and maybe we can just start asking 20 questions and try to go at this by process of elimination.

I tried to get pictures of them, Equilibrium, but they are so small and since they are black and around the roots on the black soil, you can't see them in the pics. Also, they fly!
I've been checking the plants that I repotted in good, clean soil and so far have not seen anymore. I think that would be too simple! I keep waiting to see them show up again.
I talked to someone from my bonsai club and he said if I see anymore to call him and he'll come and take a look.
I'll be happy if I never see another one of them again!

they sound like fungus gnats to me. Do they all fly up when you water them?

tigerlily is right on. you don't really need a picture to know it's fungus gnats. sometimes just changing the soil is all it takes.

thank you, tiger and track! how/why did they get into the plants? (yes, I'm a newbie gardener!) Will they hurt the plants or do they just live in the soil? Could they have come from the soil (very sandy) that Wal-Mart had them planted in...or am I making a big deal about nothing?
Anyway, thank you again. One more question...is there any way of preventing them from infesting any of my other plants?

yes they will infect your other plants if you don't kill them. Like their names says, they have the potential to carry a fungus to your plant, but probably not likely. They are annoying when you swallow one as I have done on occaision-lol.
As to the best way to kill them, I am sitting here thinking about it myself. I have 3 greenhouses that I let the population build up in, and the girl who fertlizes is rightfully complaining about the swarms that hit her in the face.
There are chemicals at Home Depot or Lowes that you can buy and spray on them, but they won't kill the larvae in the soil, so you have to get on a spray schedule of every 5 days until they are all gone-maybe 3-4 times.

Hmm, this might be Springtails as well as a few other pests that come to mind. Springtails would definitely appear to spring up or fly up when she waters her plants. Springtails have the appearance of looking like a tiny ant where in which fungus gnats tend to all have wings and to me they resemble fruit flies with smaller eyes and smaller wings. I was the lucky recipient of a Springtail infestation from a WalMart African Violet so I guess all of their plants have Springtails from the store I go to because those little buggers sure do get around.

If she has fungus gnats (which I don't necessarily think she does because she indicated her bugs looked like tiny ants and that some had wings and some didn't), there is a very easy and affordable way to get rid of them. Look for a product called Gnatrol. It's a biological Larvicide. A little bit more expensive by a few dollars than spraying chemicals around at 5 day intervals but then again, maybe not because you'd have to keep up with that regime and given your plants are outside, you'll be spraying quite a few. Gnatrol is generally a 2-3 application deal and then you're done. If you have Springtails, they are generally more of a nuisance than anything else and their populations would subside naturally once you are through the rainy season. It might be best to see a photo because this could be any number of pests, some need to be controlled and others can be left alone.

You are right Equilibrium, my bad. I was already thinking about fungus gnats when I read her post, and didn't see the "outside " part. Am in the greenhouse all day, so I automatically assume everyone else too lol too hasty on my part.
They probably are not fungus gnats if she had to carefully look at the roots before she/CeeBCross (sorry Cee-didn't mean to exclude you here) saw them. Fungus gnats have a habit of making themselves known.
Sorry Cee-I don't know the first thing about these other bugs-good for me, bad for you lol. At least if they are not vigorous flyers they will be easier to kill if thats the path you go down. Oil, like Neem oil(?)-any horticultural oil usually is pretty effective with the adults and larvae.

What do you think about CeeBCross trying Diatomaceous Earth around the bases of her plants since we don't know what she's got? That product is affordable and it sure does shred up most insect larva pretty well without being a bother to any of her pets or kids if she has them? Under a microscope, it looks like shards of glass. It's pretty deadly to most insects yet totally non-toxic to us. Just a thought. A photo would really be ideal but some of these insects are just so tiny that catching a digital image of them is virtually impossible.

I love Neem Oil. It's not right for every type of plant out there but it sure can nip situations in the bud out the gate at times. I think, not positive because the bottle is not in front of my face, that the brand that I use that has Neem Oil in it is Safer? I do also have the concentrate but I don't think she'd need to incur that expense.

Meant to tell you that I've eaten fungus gnats myself and they've flown up my nose and ended up squirming around alive in my eyes. I hate fungus gnats and there isn't even enough of them when you ingest a few to make it worth your while to refer to them as a protein source ;) Nasty bothersome bugs thsoe fungus gnats are.

Lol Equilibrium...I think I have a fungus gnat at the back of my throat as I type. Been swallowing water, but anyway....I have a big container of hort. oil that I mix with water, and also one of Safer soap. Have never even used the soap, but the oil is great for mealy bugs and whiteflies, and I would guess aphids.
I use the oil on my annuals, and shrubs outside (whiteflies). What plants can you not use it on? I am not sure that I would use it on flowering annuals though-have you had any experience with flowering annuals and oil?

My experience with flowering annuals is like next to nothing as in zip/nadda/zilch. Take that back, geraniums are an annual for all practical purposes here and I buy those in flats to put in planters here as well as to give away in threesies to people as gifts when I have extra. I've never really had to treat those with anything but the geraniums don't last all that long around here because they are in planters out in front of the garage where the basketball hoop is- need I say any more? I should just plant basketballs because that's what ends up in my planters anyway. Now I am racking my brain for any other annuals I grow. Petunias. Do those count? Those are by my front door in planters. People use those as cigarette ash trays. I have no idea why people put out cigarettes in planters but they do. I think that's all in the annual department for me. Nothing seems to eat my geraniums or my petunias but then they don't last long enough to be eaten around here. Oops, I forgot good old Snapdragons. We grow those every year because the kids like to make them "talk" by smashing their "cheeks" together. The Snapdragons are so mutilated by the time the kids are done messing with them that there isn't much left for a bug to eat. There ya go, the sum total of my experience with annuals. Sorry, I can't answer your question regarding Neem Oil and annuals.

The reason why I love Neem Oil is many "popular" chemicals are losing their ability to control pests. Here, read this-
http://www.ipmofalaska.com/files/neem.html
Neem Oil is not harmful to beneficial insects. Predator insects do not feed on plants so they won't be harmed by the existance of Neem on a plant. Therefore, Neem will only negatively impact those insects feeding on plants treated with Neem. Major added bonus for me is that Neem biodegrades in the soil within a few weeks or when exposed to sunlight as would be the case if sprayed on a plant.

I can tell you that I have used Neem Oil on many perennials and have enjoyed phenomenal success... depending on the plant and depending on the bug. I would not use Neem on a Drosera or a Pinguicula and I'm sure there are many other species that Neem Oil and/or horticultural oils in general should not be used on. Neem is a broad spectrum botanical pesticide and I'll always use Neem first if at all possible. The fact that it can control some mites is an added bonus and as we all know, most people grab an insecticide and start spraying when they have a mite and well that won't work since mites are arachnids not insects. Neem is a nematacide, miticide, as well as an inseciticide, and it has some anti-fungal properties also. Aphids will be knocked down with Neem as will Whiteflies. One thing on the Aphids though, you probably need to set out a bunch of ant baits. Ants will farm Aphids so if you don't address any ants you have, you could end up with another aphid infestation. Mealie bugs... Neem probably isn't the route to go with those as they can be tricky little buggers because of the armor shell some of them have. That's one where I'd go straight for Orthene. Systemics do have their place, particularly in a greenhouse where situations can spin out of control real fast.

Forgot about the DE that you were asking about. I have a large box that I got for slugs and snails for whenI put the annuals outside but never used. If I had a small amt of pots I would certainly try using it.
You couldn't be more right about systemics-a great one is Marathon-works really well for aphids, I have not found it to be that effective if whiteflies are already established.
Never realized that Neem was an anti-fungal. Not the first thing I would reach for if I had a fungus, or my first choice as a preventative-hmmm. Need to go read a label for it.
There are a lot of products out there that say they are anti-fungal, but only address one fungus such as boytritis-a fungus that is easy to get rid of.
I'll tell you what I have found that works great on Mealy bugs is rubbing alcohol-which you probably already knew. I use Flagship on them, but they are hard to get at, and so I keep a spray bottle with me when I am working on the coleus of half rub. alcohol and half water and you can really kill them with that. At first I was using a weaker spray-but this is better.
Just read about Neem oil-thats interesting-it works on cutworms (a major pest for pansies). The question I have is that most oil works by suffocating the larvae or coating the insect with oil. Cutworms are usually down in the soil during the day so either you drench the soil with the Neem (a lot more spraying involved) or you foliar spray and the worm gets a toxic reaction from eating the stem? May call them and ask- although worms are relatively easy to get rid of-it just takes time to spray the whole crop.
You are also right about pests and fungus building up a resistence to a certain spray. I always go at it with a few different methods. The best method is always-sterlizilation and growing on the dry side.

Rubbing alcohol can do a number on some types of mealie bugs... one propblem is that it is often difficult to tell which one you have and they do have this habit of getting into the crotches. Let me know what you learn when you call about Cutworms.

Sheesh, Neem should be paying us for our free advertising. They should give us product!

I go back and check after I spray the alcohol and if they are dead, then they are the dead ones! lol. Don't know that much about them as I just started to get them a year ago or so. They can build up fast, I'll say that for them. I only see them on coleus and sweet potato

tigerlily, you might want to consider Orthene for your mealie bugs.

when you say Orthene-which product-don't they have a lot of them? Flagship works too. They are mostly all gone now-but I will look into it. Thanks, I like to have a variety in my arsenal lol

Neem has an ingredient(Azadirachtin) that is an insect growth regulator. It keeps the insects from molting and going from one stage to another, therefore they die. It can affect some beneficials, especially predatory mites and immature larvae of lacewings and ladybugs if sprayed directly on them. Just be cautious when spraying.
Neem is the only fungicide I know of that will completely remove powdery mildew from a plant. All of the other fungicides for PM stop the fungus, but Neem gets rid of it.
Neem won't affect birds at all, but is toxic to bees. Spray it early in the morning or late in the evening so it will be dry when the bees come out.
Neem can cause damage to open flowers if sprayed directly on them and can also affect some leaves, causing little black spots(a phytotoxic reaction). If you've never used neem on a particular plant, test it on a few leaves first. Wait 2 or 3 days to see if it is going to cause any damage. Don't use neem on ferns.
Marrathon used to be great for whiteflies, but many are now resistant to it because of overuse. It used to work great on thrips, but there again, many are now resistant to imidicloprid(active ingredient in Marrathon). Neem works great on thrips and whiteflies.
For fungus gnats, we used Gnatrol on large plantings(we used to grow 10,000+ potted mums every year). We used an injector to add it to the drip irrigation. For smaller areas in the greenhouse, I would use DE. We bought some DE that had pyrethrum mixed in it, great stuff for fungus gnats and worked pretty good when sprayed on mealy bugs but would sometimes clog the sprayer.
For cutworms we used Bt.
There are products for the greenhouse called Total Release Aerosols like X-clude(pyrethrum), Attain(Bifenthrin) and Duraguard(organophosphate). Some of these will damage ferns and sensitive plants, so read all the material that comes with the insecticide before using. Attain was safe on ferns and killed fern scale.

Tigerlily, Orthene is a product, a systemic insecticide(do not use on vegetable plants). Ortho is the company that makes it. Ortho has a lot of products for the home gardener.

The Orthene I was referring to is not manufactured by Ortho-
http://www.growersupply.com/orthene.html
Flagship can control but Orthene used properly with timed applications can rid you of them. The Orthene at the link above is the Orthene I would recommend for Mealy Bugs regardless of whether you have a small or large scale infestation and regardless of which type of Mealy Bug you have. If this is the route you choose to go, I can walk you through how I use the product.

I would definitely agree with this. Really glad you mentioned that.

Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki) hasn't been all that effective against Cutworms based on experiences of friends who suffered from repeated outbreaks. They have moved on to parasticizing the larva with Braconid Wasps (Apanteles militaris). If I got hit with Cutworms, I'd go for Steinernema carpocapsae. I've also checked in to Heterorhabditis but didn't get far as there aren't a lot of people out there using those. The S. carpocapsae nematodes allegedly do a number on Cutworms and they are totally safe to use. I have not gotten nailed by Cutworms yet (knocking on wood) but if I did, that's the route I'd go. I have never had to purchase S. carpocapsae so I don't have a link to post for anyone interested. Aren't biological "weapons" the best! I am convinced that over the long haul, they are half the price of conventional/traditional chemicals and far safer for us humans.

Equilibrium, I have used Orthene-but for cutworms and pansy worms-it works well. The cutworms eat the plant and die, not a contact killer. I must confess here that I do love a good cutworm hunt lol. When I walk the rows of pansies looking for problems ( of which there can be many growing them here in the heat of the summer) if I see the eaten stem, a thrill goes thru me lol ...just kidding, but I am always happy to kill them. You have to find the pot with the 1/4" hole in it, and tip the pt upside down and take the pot off, and theres the big boy, hiding at the base. I have gotten to the point where I can just squish them ( well the really big ones I will step on) I sound crazy-I know. Pansy worms are a bigger problem.
I used to fill pots and transplant at night with lights outside (because of the heat), but that year was the worst for cutworms. You would see a lot of pretty moths though, but I don't use lights anymore.
Ok sorry for the digression...I have Acephate pro 75-same as Orthene-same rate as well-I use 2Tablespoons/20 gal h20 for the worms. I didn't know that it was effective on mealybugs-this is great. It doesn't say it does mealybugs. What is the rate you would use? And just foliar drench? Would you use a surfactant as well? Wonder if it would work on fungus gnats. I sprayed Talstar Sunday and didn't see a difference. Talstar is usually very effective on lots of pests. I try not to spray pesticides much.
I really need to learn more about biological controls-esp in the greenhouse. Have been putting articles aside from my grower mags on the subject. Maybe I could ask you some questions after this crop? Are they effective if you have an outside crop like pansies?, or do they just leave the area ? lol.

Calalily, you would put the DE in your sprayer? I must have a different product-its a fine powder. One reason that I have not used it is that I can't see me adding it by hand to all the pots. Is that what you did?
I have used the aerosols-pop and run lol, but I don't think they work that well. I may use one for these f. gnats thou.
I know that they say that Orthene is a "systemic" but I don't really think it is-well I should say that it is the shortest acting systemic that I know of. Now Marathon and Subdue-those are great systemics.
I figured you had grown commercially when you said that you had drenched an area outside with Subdue Maxx. Its great to be able to have these converstions here with you both. I really love to learn new things and in this business you need all the help you can get.
Do you miss not growing on a commercial level at all? I know that you still garden-with no pressure lol, but I think I would miss it on some levels. Other times I think I must be crazy to be doing this. I think growing annuals is one of the hardest jobs in this industry, there is so much that can go wrong, but on the other hand I really love being out there in the greenhouse working for myself.

Oh Goodie! Goodie! Goodie! Look what I have to look forward to if I ever get infested with Cutworms. You crack me up! Thanks for depends moment!

Valent's Orthene is the only product I have found to be effective against Mealie Bugs and it does appear to last up to at least 6 weeks if not considerably longer dependent on the species. I mix up a big vat of it at 1 tsp per gallon. Then I systematically dip every plant (pot and all) for 5 minutes then I lift it out of the vat and let it drain and put the pot back where ever it came from. I treat every plant to a dip, even those that have no evidence of having mealie bugs, as a prophylactic. The other deal is that I no longer use wood stakes or wooden vanda hanging baskets. I found that mealies will hang out in cracks and crevices to "weather out the storm". Black plastic vanda baskets are just as good and who needed the bamboo stakes anyway as there are other affordable alternatives out there. Back to the Orthene, 24 hours after I dip the plants, I flush the pots with water. In 10 days I re-treat with the Valent product at 1/2 tsp per gallon and dip them all again. I do not flush the pots after that follow up treatment. I am not a professional grower. I am more into this because of conservation, habitat restoration, and preservation of native species. It was all of my personal Orchids, Hoya, Nepenthes, African Violets, and Sarracenia that got exposed to the mealie bugs thanks to an infested gift from my secretary that I stupidly repotted and didn't quarantine. I was fit to be tied. I grabbed a magnifying glass and took a q-tip and dipped it in alcohol and went after every mealie bug I could find while I waited for my Orthene to be delivered. I was not a happy camper. Livid would sum it up. The big problem is that I don't see all that well and never caught that they were on the "gift" plant until she told me she had found them on her plants that she had ordered at the same time. Sure enough, I took photos of my plants and when I enlarged the images, there they were all nestled in to every available nook and cranny. Nice fuzzy white mealie bugs that had already spread to plants that were next to the infected plant. I hate mealie bugs.

Would Gnatrol be effective in an outdoor area? Don't see why not. The Bt in Gnatrol is Bacillus thuringeiensis ssp israelensis. Target specific. You must get the correct Bt.

lol Equilibrium if you like my cut worm story, one day I will tell you about the black widow hunts we go on in the greenhouses. There is one big girl that has been living in the electrical panel for years. Or the slug hunts at night in the greenhouse with a flashlight ( can't turn the lights on or they leave, albet not that fast lol)
You are saying the rate you use is over 3 times the amt that i use for Orthene. I do 2T/20 gal, you use almost 7T/20 gal.
I would have to spray- lol I have over 14,400 plants in that house. Not to mention that I would die of boredom from waiting 5 min/2 plants. I need a few octopuses-at the least! Want to come help? I have done the q-tip with alcohol. Its a real bulls-eye way to go.

OH MY GAWD! I felt sorry for myself with only a couple hundred 2.5 gallon pots and about another couple hundred smaller pots. Baby, I think it's time for you to foliar spray and drench from pot to pot with wild abandon. I think I will rename you the wild sprinkling woman. I dipped because some of the plants I had were federally endangered species and some were a couple hundred dollars a piece and I wanted them to soak up the good stuff real well. Trust me, I was spitting BBs and cursing the nursery that sold my secretary that "gift" Hoya and I didn't even treat a thousand plants. I can't imagine how ugly I would have been if I had to treat 14,000. No, I can imagine and it wouldn't have been a pretty sight because as it was.. my kids were whispering to each other to stay away from me or risk getting gnawed on. Orthene will do a real good number on most ickies and nasties that try to feed on plants so I'd hold off and go with Valent's Orthene first and see what's left crawling or flying after that. I know you are going to be left traumatized over this one but... the Orthene should do a number on those slugs too so there'd be no reason for you to be out in your jammies and bathrobe patrolling the greenhouse with a flashlight any longer. I'm thinking this Orthene soil drench followed up with another soil drench is 10 days might just kill of a few birds with one stone. At 1 teaspoon per gallon, you could drench quite a few plants and it would still be cost effective. Believe it or not, you could probably water at least 10-20 plants with the "good stuff" per 5 minutes and be done watering every last plant all by yourself in one day.. I wouldn't bother flushing them but I would follow up in 10 days with another soil drench at 1/2 tsp per gallon. Foliar spraying wouldn't take all that long either. I gotta tell you that lifting each plant and submersing it is hard on the back. Are you putting out ant bait traps?

By the way, the q-tip dipped in alcohol was a pain in the rear. You need good vision for that. It's not like they are a moving target or anything but you still need to be able to see the little buggers. I only did that to feel as if I was doing something while I waited for the powdered Orthene. Incredibly time consuming pulling plants off shelves individually to be able to inspect them and those darn mealie bugs love to hide. I did feel better doing something though.

Question for you,

What do you do with that THING in the electrical panel when you need to change a fuse? I'd probably leave her alone too but how does one shush a tarantula out of the way to work in an electrical panel. Inquiring minds want to know.

lol you are so funny Equilibrium. I really am getting a kick out of this. I have two more greenhouses, and one of them probably has twice that amt of plants. These are 1801's though-18plants to a flat. I would not be hauling 2.5 gallon containers around. Yes you can call me the sprayer lady-cause I ain't a dipper lol.
I am not worried about the cost of Orthene-its one of the cheapest pesticides I know of. Like $10/can. Marathon is about $150/2.5 lb jug. Its the rate that you are applying it that concerns me-and you are drenching as opposed to my foliar spray-so you are applying so much more than I do-in two ways. Mealies aren't the problem-its the fungus gnats that I will be going at. I have no doubt though that they will be back. Like all good bugs.
I would love to be able to go after that fat girl-but the electricity scares me a lot more than her. She is behind the panel-where all the live wires are-actually she may be fried-haven't seen her web in a while lol. Black widows are really easy to kill-if I may say so, I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on them. When we first started to see them-the girls (workers-not spiders) started to freak out and I had to call a bug prof at the university. I had one girl that just loved to hunt them down. Their web is very distinctive-strong but disorganized and they are never in their web during the day. But Carrie could find them.
Now I am just being stupid-the kind of stupid you get from being so tired. lol. Got to go get something to eat. Heres a picture of one of the greenhouses.

That's not a greenhouse! That's an indoor soccer field filled to the brim with plants and devoid of kids and devoid of a soccer ball. Silly you! Lemme guess, your other greenhouses are olympic swimming pools structures without the water and the dive team?

Umm, my cheap side is coming out... where are you getting wettable Orthene for $10 a can?

If it is fungus gnats that are really pushing you over the edge, seriously consider using a biological. Personally, I don't know what it would be like to have a day when one of those things didn't fly up my nose or get stuck in my eye or sucked in my mouth. I am pretty careful about them in the areas where I have seedlings but in other areas I merely set out Pinguicula ssp. or Drosera binata. Sometimes I swirl them around in the air over other plants so that they stick better. My babies love their yummies. Muahahahahahahahahaha!

Oh my, those were the days. I do miss the greenhouse, especially when I need to start seeds or cuttings and especially miss it when I need a pot full of dirt.
I don't know why I've always thought Ortho made Orthene(one of those word association things, I guess).
I don't think I've ever had a cutworm problem. We did grow corn for a while for market and the corn ear worms were so bad we had to spray lanate(nasty stuff, a little bit will kill a human).
The DE is from PermaGuard and is a powder. http://www.perma-guard.com/ is their website, but there's not much on it. It would clog the sprayer, but I just took the nozzle apart, cleaned it and kept on spraying.
I just remembered something else we used for fungus gnats, can't remember the exact proportions though. We put tea tree oil in water and sprayed the soil surface and sometimes made a drench with it. Seems like it was 1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon to a gallon of water, it didn't take much and a drop of dish detergent to make it mix better.
I was searching my files for a picture of our greenhouses but couldn't find one. I think they're on a disk.

I've not had the pleasure of a cutworm infestation but I gotta tell you I sat here giggling at her desctiption of seeking them out and destroying them.

I don't have a greenhouse and never have so I've merely spread out all over my house. My kitchen is my potting shed.

I'd love to see the photos of your old greenhouse. Lemme guess, another biggun like tigerlily's greenhouses?

Hey Equilibrium...had my trusty rub alcohol sprayer out yesterday spraying and was fondly thinking of you! lol. I was thinking I needed a smaller sprayer bottle to use easier-this ones too big to grab fast when you are transplanting and only needed it intermittently. Its like my trusty 6 shooter (that is a gun? lol I am not a gun person)
Yes Orthene is that cheap. Was talking to my source where I buy my supplies for the greenhouse. We were talking about raising PH fast, but I asked him about the Orthene. Man-does he know and love his chemicals. lol. He had never heard of it for mealy bugs. He says that Safari is the new chem to use-killed the aphids dead ( I know this talk of chems is killing you) but not sure how systemic it is. He agrees with me that Orthene is not a true systemic. When I use it for pansy/cutworms -have to reapply every week.
I didn't mean to put a picture of one of my workers in the pic lol she said not to when I took the pic. The greenhouse is 100' long-but it only looks 50' I think i had in in closeup or something. I am new to digital cameras- lol it was a miracle that I figured out how to use and load it into the comp.
Looking for cutworms after you see the hole in the dirt is like an Easter egg hunt-I love it lol.
The problem with the gnats is that top shelf you see in the pic. When you are fertilizing, your face is 3" from the pots and they all swarm into your face and you can't move away because you have to stay on the pots to fert. correctly lol-its not me that does the fert. but I hear about it. Gnats always gravitate to the highest shelf. Anyway we have been taking a bunch of flowers out the past 2 days and trying to get the top shelf empty. Things will start to get better soon.
I can't stop thinking about that other thread you posted in-the one where she had a oak with gall(sp?) and had a vine going up and I said just cut the vine at the base and try to pull it up. And you said that depending on the vine, it could come back with 50 shoots mocking her ( i got such a kick out of that) You are great with words. But what vine would do that first, and second, wouldn't it be easier to kill the new shoots?

Engish Ivy and Kudzu come to mind. I've had more than my fair share of that English Ivy haunting me (self inflicted because I planted about 100 plugs here). Many vines that reproduce asexually might fall into this category. If you have a vine that expands by runners and/or rhizomes and/or by vines that root at the nodes to form new plants... you have a vine that might need some extra special TLC when you are nuking it.

There are differing opinions on how best to kill some of these vines. I have found that if I am using a foliar spray, I want as much vegetation as possible to treat so that it "wicks" all through the root system. I've had some vines here that came back to mock me ten fold and they all seemed to chant, "Nanner nanner nanner! You didn't get me!". I like to pull them off their hosts and curl them up on tarps so that I can spritz the plant with enough "happy juices" to send it to plant heaven. Heavy hitters go back and forth on how best to kill some of these monsters. Me, I just keep plugging along... my property is pretty loaded with all kinds of ickies and nasties so I have ample opportunities to get "techniques" down pat and with what my neighbors are planting that ends up over here, I'll have many more opportunities to improve on my techniques in the years to come.

So, Safari is the new chem of choice. I've not used that one. Is it on my horizon?

Now I am virtually rolling on the floor at the thought of an Easter Egg hunt where the gayly colored eggs were swapped for Cutworms. Wouldn't the kids be impressed! I think that sounds like an opportunity in the waiting with Easter right around the corner. You could start advertising to friends and realtives now that you have a very special hunt planned that is a twist on an old theme. You could find one particularly choice cutworm and spritz him gold then let him go. Pass out adult beverages at your cutworm hunt party and offer the adult who finds the golden cutworm a plant of their choice.

He would have to be the biggest boy....lol One that I could specially raise on pansies before the hunt. I tend not to want to share this special pleasure. And the thought of all these adults partaking in "adult beverages" and then going out in my rows of pansies and turning them upside down-and all around isn't my idea of a "Easter egg hunt" lol. Call me selfish. Besides, when indulging in "adult beverages" they tend to want to stay on the deck. Loafers. Except when I get the fireworks out. I especially like the ones that you set off waist high and they go sideways-but you don;t know which direction until they take off. I have had some people go inside for those. One ended up in a man's crotch...spinning around.
Now I am laughing remembering that. You bring out the worst in me Equilibrium lol. When we do the roman candle fights, we get off the deck and into the yard for those. I have a few friends that enjoy those.
Really...i am not as crazy as I sound. I am a grownup mom with 3 older boys. Maybe that was the problem...

You do raise a valid point, "adults partaking in "adult beverages" and then going out in my rows of pansies and turning them upside down-and all around isn't my idea of a "Easter egg hunt". Forgive me tigerlily, I wasn't thinking but then again my consumption of adult beverages is limited to a glass of wine (maybe 1 and a half glasses of wine) or a Mike's Hard Lemonade. Any thing more than that and I'd probably be flattened out in your pansies asleep with drool coming out of my mouth. Classy, very classy. Needless to say, I never exceed my limit so I'd be a safe one to invite if you changed your mind about a Cutworm hunt.

I have 6 brothers who are all well over age 40 like me, 5 boys, and all nephews save my one young princess niece who is my shopping buddy. My own Dad and husband are both major league pyromaniacs and it rubbed off on all the others in the family. Our neighborhood is loaded with Y chromosome pyromaniacs who are into big brush pile fires and fireworks so my husband feels at home here. Some neighbors pool their resources and place a group order to get the best pricing. The order last year was over 10k. Does this tell you something? The guy who coordinates the order is an insurance agent... you'd think out of the lot of them that he'd have some sense but noooooooo. Needless to say if you live around here; it is best around the 4th of July to run, run very fast, and run very far. They are insane here and the neighbors invite friends and family over for yard parties where they point their fireworks at other neighbor's homes. It's become an annual event. I take the garden hose and hose down my roof before the festivities begin and I know the other wives are doing the same thing before they collect up their kids and pets and go inside their homes to wait it out. These are grown up men doing this crap and my Dad comes over here with bells on his toes to get in on the action.

When we are up north, we have lake wars. That's where people take their fishing boats and create armor for them (sometimes the armor is nothing more than the cardboard from a refrigerator but others create their armor out of plywood and I've seen more than my fair share of people holding up umbrellas over their heads) and go out into the middle of the lake while homeowners launch at them. Yes, Y chromosomes actually go out into the middle of the lake in fishing boats so that other Y chromosomes can shoot fireworks at them (Darwin's theories not exactly coming into play here). About 10 years ago I was sitting on the stoop under the protection of the eves of my brother's summer home when the lake festivities began. One of my brothers bought some specialty fireworks that were touted as having an amazing display. One of those special fireworks went off from the deck in an odd direction. I saw it coming right toward me. Two of my nephews were sitting on the stoop on either side of me and the thing looked as if it was coming toward our heads. I forcibly pushed one nephew off the steps and to the ground and out of the way while grabbing the other nephew's head and rammed it in my lap and leaned over him with my upper body to shield him. Do you know how sometimes when you bend over a crack/opening gets created in the back of your pants by the waist (think plumbers butt)? Well that's exactly what happened to me when I leaned over Gregory. That firecracker thing landed in that crack in my pants and went off. What are the odds of that! Oh the pain. I recall ripping my pants off and not caring who saw. It blew up pretty good down my pants. I stood on the toilet seat in the bathroom examining my rearend in the trifold mirror over the sink. Everybody was crowding in the bathroom to look at what John had done to my rearend. I had technicolor bruises for a month and my own doctor said it could have been a lot worse than just first and second degree burns. Needless to say they don't order that particular type of fireworks any longer and people now launch from the piers out over the water. Be glad that your friends and family are only playing with Roman Candles.

Speaking of twisted friends and family, do you have Sweedish Glug parties down south or is that just a northern activity? I'm too old and don't run fast enough for those any longer.