Mum aphids

Anybody have them or have any experience getting rid of them? Usually early in the spring I get a couple of different varieties of aphids roll in, but no biggy and am easily able to control them in a coupel weeks, but got these mums this year and now that the plants are big and getting blooms on them, they are infected with the brown/black mum aphids.

I have tried, seven dust, jet spraying, dish soap, garden safe and even got desperate enough to try the dogs flea spray on a couple of plants. Nothing I have tried has worked so far.

If somebody has some ideas or suggestions, would ever be so grateful. read where these things overwinter in the soil and don't want to loose all he mums I got.

All those things (except the dog's flea spray and maybe the dish soap depending on how diluted it was) should work on aphids, the trick is you have to keep after them or else they'll come back. Because of the fact that you have to keep after them, I usually stick with the garden hose or insecticidal soap rather than going to something stronger. I have some plants where the aphids just love them and there's really no way to keep them away permanently, so with those I usually just hose them off every couple days, that way even though they come back they don't really have a chance to do a ton of damage to the plants. Anytime I've grown anything from the milkweed family they are always covered in milkweed aphids, but with hosing them off every couple days the plants never seemed to suffer any ill effects. If you're willing to stop with the pesticides you could also try bringing in ladybugs to help you out.

Ecrane.. I been jet spraying about every other day. Even turning the pots sideways to try and knock them down on the ground far enough that they would die, even been out squishing by hand as much as I can.

These nasty guys are like no other aphid I have seen. I scouted all around and don't have the first lady bug around. Not enough food for them eveidently with the drought and things not growing and most have moved on to other fields.

Only thign with the jet spraying is I worring about the roots getting over watered.

I've even tried introducing some wasps and walkign sticks and lizards and other critters to see if maybe they would munch down on them, but nobody seems to like them that why I trying some of the chems now.

very rare ya see me pull out chems, so ya know it real bad if I am. Oh the dog spray don't work by the way, but hey never find out unless ya try. I read where these guys have alot of resistance to stuff and they sure our right.

Still wondering how these pests managed to find their way into my yard. Never had them before and nobody around has any mums and I pretty isolated.

I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but they have their ways of finding plants (or if these were things you bought this year, they may have already been on the plants but maybe there was only one or two of them so you didn't notice them until they multiplied and turned into hundreds). I don't see anyone else in my neighborhood growing milkweed, but the second I planted my Tweedia solanoides (a member of the milkweed family) the milkweed aphids were all over it. Same thing with the Asclepias I had at my old house--nobody around me was growing anything in that family but the milkweed aphids didn't take long to find them. As a last resort you could always use a systemic (active ingredient is imidacloprid, Bayer is one manufacturer but there may be others). Personally I don't like the systemics because there's some evidence that they can harm bees but you can do your own research and make up your mind on whether you would feel good using it.