Container Garden Pests

Hello and good morning,

This is my first season as an urban container gardener, with approximately 40 pots of both annuals and perennials. Everything seems to be growing and blooming bountifully. This morning, however, I noticed through the sunrays swirling, floating white (what appears to be) bugs. They are far too small for me to capture and photograph. I can only explain that it looks like white dust or ash or a tiny particulate of some kind that is swirling about in my small space - and they are rather dense. We are having warm to hot Santa Ana winds today, which could be related somehow. If this condition sounds familiar I could certainly use some advise on how best to eradicate the problem (if it is one). Or be pointed to a link for help. Any product suggestions might be helpful too.

This gardening hobby is wonderful and while I'm having very good luck my first year out, I'm too new to understand much about pest control.

One more question - can Neem oil safely be sprayed on annuals and perennials? Just wondering.

Have a good Sunday and thanks.

Bonnie

Do they appear to be landing on the plants? There are often little tiny things, some people call them gnats, some call them no-see-ums, these won't hurt plants but since there's moisture in the containers they may be attracted to it (I have them flying around my patio pretty regularly). It could also just be dust, if you're having wind then that's entirely possible as well. I wouldn't do anything unless you start finding bugs on your plants--if it was whiteflies or something like that you'd see them on the plants too. As far as using neem--it's fine on most types of plants, but since it's an oil I wouldn't recommend spraying it when the plants are going to be in the sun because it might make the leaves burn. There are lots of other things you could use too but it's best to figure out what pest you have before you start randomly spraying stuff.

This tread is a great potential for all share ideas, what works and what not. I'm currious though, are there differences what we commonly call "white fly" as to that of "aphid" I can spot aphid readily, wheather they are green or red. But I've also noticed white "flies" that hide and eat/suck juice from the under sides of leaves, only to fly off every which way when disturbed. Any expert out there could help us?

White flies and aphids are different things. But until we figure out Bonnie's problem and get her the info she's looking for, we probably shouldn't digress too much into a general discussion of pest control in this thread, it's probably better to start a new thread for that.

The amount of neem oil is one ounce to a gallon of water.

I use DE and neem on my containers and so far so good. Do they look like white lil flies?

Well - whatever it was or they were, they're gone now. I'm pretty certain it wasn't dust because there was a definite flight pattern and there were a lot of them. Then poof - they're gone - except for a few. While they could have been teeny tiny white flies, I didn't notice anything landing on my plants and I've been watching and checking since the sun came up. It's a very hot day here - into the high 80s (likely hotter on my deck) - with mild winds blowing. Maybe the wind blew them my way and blew them away again. As recommended, I won't spray or treat any of my plants until I'm certain what's what in my garden. Being so new at this and with such a booming spring they/it made me nervous, so I thought I'd would ask. Thank you each for your answers. If they come back, I'll pay attention and yell for help if it looks like I'm under attack.

I've been reading and reading this site daily and cannot believe the abundance of useful information and help that is available. What a gardener's gold mine.

Thanks again.
Bonnie