my mandevilla vine has aphids and a bad case of them! can i spray malathion on them or will it burn the plant? i have made a mistake like that in the past w/ spider mites on a eucalyptus, and aphids on my poinsettia that is planted in the ground, and it burned both of their leaves. can i do this?
malathion on mandevilla?
diehard, you are gonna hate this advice, but oh well. I try to use all-natural and organic methods (or least stuff that I know what it is without a master's in molecular chemistry)....I don't know what malathion is. BUT, I do know that for aphids, a strong stream of water will knock most of them off the plant. I would then make a spray bottle with regular dish soap (I always get orange/citrus scented), or concentrated citrus cleaner (available lots of places) and water, and spray using that. You shouldn't have a problem long. Safer soap will also work.
mmk i'll try that. malathion is a nasty smelling chemical my dad always uses for aphid and spider mite infestations. ive taken over the yard now, so i still use his ways... it worked GREAT on the oleander when almost every stem was covered in them this year.
Not to hop on a hippie soapbox or anything..lol...but the downside to using strong chemical pesticides is that they develop a resistance pretty quickly and it becomes ineffective.
Those mandevillas do get aphids pretty bad, that's why I got rid of mine-they got infested at the end of the year when I was going to bring them inside.
I think ardesia (maybe) was saying that earthworm castings around her plants help keep aphids down. That's definately worth a try if you can find them.
yeah thats what the traps are for n the woods. i designed them myself, so hopefully they will work!
earthworm traps? They like coffee, too, newspaper...other junk..lol
When I was in college (not too terribly long ago) I landscaped for a sweet elderly woman that had developed cancer from flying planes with insecticides (she was a flight instructor during WWII-pretty cool chick!), so she only used organic materials. She had me do cold compost in her gardens. Basically she would save her food waste in cans and have me chop and bury it all around in her gardens. This was in the mountains of Western NC--HARD red clay w/ lots of rocks. She had TONS of earthworms and the tilth of her soil was the best I've ever seen up there.
wow thats pretty cool! i'll try that! we have a "swamp" behind us, so ill try that tecnuque there! the worms here seem to prefer the organic material that has accumulated in the woods over the sand that makes up the rest of my yard... go figure!
Good luck, I'd do it in my gardens, but far too much work....lol
We have a big compost though, we use it every spring and pile it up the rest of the year. Really though, sometimes when I plant, I'll cover the hole in newspaper and the earthworms go crazy over it, too. I hear the redworms people use for bait are also good to add.
yeah my best frind is a fishing nerd (a cool one) and so maybe i can use the "dirt" from the worms...
PS how much soap per gallon?
Oh, I don't know, I don't get that serious with measurements, I just get it pretty soapy, don't think I've ever over done it. If it seems too much, you can always wait a couple hours, then rinse them.
so it won't kill the plant if i put too much in?
As hard as I've tried, I'm not sure it's possible! lol--I mix garden stuff like I do in the kitchen...a little of this...a bit of that...lol
ha ha just dont mix any bad things together... it might react like bleach and ammonia... not cool :-)
Yep, you've got it! Do you trade plants ever?
yeah sure do.... you?
Oh, you ask so meekly...lol. I trade probably too much. Trying to stick to hardy tropicals now. If there's something you're looking for, though, give a shout. I only do plants, stink at seeds..lol
ha ha something in common. i cant do seeds either. im interested in hardy tropicals and ones that are hardy to here. if it can't live outside in the winter, im not interested...Lol thats my attitude. fotunately we can grow all sort of things unlike the rest of the carolinas... my bird of paradise is fixin to bloom i think... im real excited... i mean !!!!! we had a s. nicolai bloom @ the beach this year. it was sooo cool
Oh wow, that's the white one...mine will never bloom here..lol. I saw2 that you wanted leadwort and something else I already forgot..lol. Maybe we can trade this fall--I'm ate up with plants now!
You should start growing gingers there, bet they'd do great!
yeah i really want to. i've seen them around. i really like varigated shelflower ginger. that is really popular here and it is an evergreen here. you have a tade list im sure... i'll look @ it. do u ever come down my ways for vacation? maybe you could come to HHI and we could trade some day.
i just looked @ ur list... man! do you have a lot of the things i want! your crinums, your ginger... especially the crepe ginger and peacock ginger, the giand spider lily... oosh luck you!
i meant lucky you
LOL, I think you were looking at my wants list. I don't have much on my haves cause it's just easier to keep a trade list that way (lots of people will offer you things you don't really need for good stuff, and I have a hard time saying no)---I usually just post what I have available on the trading page. I do have the swamp crinum, and several other crinums, but not enough of the others to trade yet. Same with ginger-I have white butterfly available, and have plenty of variegated shell ginger (lots of others that I'm starting this year). If you can remind me (early Alzheimer's..lol) , I can try to send you some in the fall as it will be a marginally hardy plant here.
oh ha ha ha im sooo dum mmk ill look @ the right one this time LOL. do u mean crinum americanum? that is one of my favorites for here... i really like crinums. i would love some ginger rhizomes.i'll try to remind you. i just gotta remember too. what are you interested from me
Loquat, magnolia, jasmine...lol...I wish I could grow seeds, I'd love a needle palm, but I am notorius for killing seeds.
Salvia guaranitica - i just looked at your HAVE list not ur wants list, and i think that is cool i'd lik to have it in my yard too.
needle palms are wild here. maybe i could get one from a wild plant.
what do you mean by jasmine? confederate jasmine or yellow jessamine/jasmine? loquats: there are ones that escaped cultivation in the woods behind my neighbors' house, and there are magnolias growing everywhere in the woods that i could get u
Really? -ya'll have some good natives there, there's not even a trillium in my woods.
Confederate jasmine is what I meant-was trying to be fast..lol. Love magnolias...need to cut some trees and replant with mags-evergreen and they flower. I have s. guarantica everywhere... you are soooo welcome to some... but a warning, it's almost invasive, I divide it a lot. Have not yet found a way to kill it either, it will grow in places hardly anything else will. The flowers are a really deep true blue, too. I might be able to get you some stuff fairly soon, keep in touch or dmail me. I'm supposed to be getting a couple of packages in the next week or so, but after that I plan to calm down a bit and might have some time :)
ok gud deal. just holler @ me if u evr feel like trading or something
NP ;)
th@ means no problem.. right? lol
You got it! lol
ok gud deal ttyl
malathion I use that stuff like water. Oh I miss the durasban days, that stuff was great. One morning after spraying durasban I looked around the backyard.............nothing moving..........not one bug. That smell......that chemical smell.......Nothing like the smell of durasban in the morning............. it smells............. like...............like...........victory.
LOL, you guys probably don't know that movie. It's a classic quote that I changed.
I always try to use the most eco friendly thing I can. Soap is always good. Oil soap is the next step up etc.
what movie is it from? if it's an old one, i can guarantee u i havent seen it! what happened to durasban? i've never known anything other than malathion.
The movie is Apocalypse Now---you should definately see it...lol
ok it sounds good just by the name. i'll c about watchin it
If your going to talk with the old folks you need to watch some classic movies and get the quotes down.
Caddy Shack is a good movie about class struggle at a golf community. Kind of heavy but it actually has good info on pest control. LOL. It's quoted a lot.
If you ever get in stock trading circles you'll here "Wall Street" being quoted all the time. Lots of info on charity and ethical behavior.Many moral lessons.
Fast times at "Ridgemont high"(? spelling?) is pretty much a documentary about my high school. That's another good movie full of useful info. LOL.
alrighty then i'll put those on my "to watch list".... but now i gotta mow the grass and then got on a youth trip with my church to ATL. were gonna c a Braves game and then 6flags on saturday and whitewater rafting in Tenn. on the ocoee river sunday mmorning, then straight back to here (7 or 8 hrs) so yeah i gtg and i'll ttyl Bye yall