How to Control Aphids! 🙅‍♀️🌿// Garden Answer

hey guys how's it going today i want to talk about aphids so i just noticed that i have an outbreak of them on this rosebush that i was wondering over in the greenhouse and i did mention in our garden tour video that we posted recently that that's one of the things i deal with in the garden and it's just one of those unfun things about gardening insect control and management is just it's not a fun thing to have to deal with but i know that most of us are dealing with one thing or another and aphids are thankfully one of the easiest things i think to get rid of in the garden so first of all aphids are a soft bodied insect that like to cluster on the soft tissue of plants so in my garden i mostly deal with them on my upright sedums and the new growth of roses and even though roses are technically a woody plant this new growth is very tender i mean look at them clustered right here on this end this new shoot it's just it's kind of gross commonly you'll find them this bright green color like i have right here but they may also be black pink gray or they even can have wings because once a colony is really established some will fly over to a new plant and start in so what they do is they suck the sap out of leaves which can cause them to look kind of crinkly or folded and if the population is big enough and the plant is stressed enough and this one is kind of at that stage and i can't even believe i didn't notice it but the leaves will start to yellow kind of like this and eventually they'll start to drop off so not only do they do that but they also leave behind a substance it's kind of like a shiny wet sticky substance and you can see it all over this plant it's called honeydew and in that substance they can spread virus fungus and mold so not a good thing something we need to handle so let's talk about preventative measures first because obviously the easiest way to deal with any kind of insect is to not have to deal with them at all best thing you can do is keep your plants healthy obviously this one is stressed out it's been in this container way too long i didn't repot it like i maybe should have so make sure that you are watering and fertilizing your plants properly if they're in containers bump them up in container side size when they need it and then you'll keep their stress level at a very minimum hopefully they're not stressed at all because bugs can sense that and they will attack the weak plants other things you can do like in vegetable gardens you can use row covers which allow light and moisture still into your plants but they keep anything from crawling in and you can also plant host plants so i know that for some of you spraying anything or using any kind of insecticide is out of the question and that's cool so host plants are really great for that so like in the vegetable garden i like to plant nasturtiums they attract aphids like crazy they have pretty flowers too but what they'll do is they'll attract all the aphids away from the crops you want to eat so if you don't mind having the bugs still present in the garden but just on that host plant to keep your other plants safe then that's a great way to do it next is just trying to catch any kind of problem early so just keep your eye out when you're out working in your garden or watering your plants just make it a habit to look over your plants especially if they're ones that have dealt with an insect problem before like the second you see any shininess on your rose leaves you might take a look like at the underside of the leaves or at the stems and see if you have any aphids starting at that point it's not as hard to deal with them so you can take your hose and just blast those few of them off with the stream of water and that usually takes care of the problem not at this point though i don't find when i have a huge outbreak like this that's very effective because there's really no way i can blast every single last aphid off this plant because they are just in all the nooks and crannies if you have an infestation like i do there are a few methods you can use to get rid of them the first method is biological control which means getting rid of the bugs by releasing their natural enemy like ladybugs and lacewings so you can buy those type of insects in bags usually and you can release them in your garden and they feed on aphids they also feed on a multitude of other really bad things like mealybugs whitefly larva mites the drawback is that you can't always find them like my parents garden center carries those insects for maybe two months out of the year because it's the only months that they can bring them in so usually if i can get on top of it and get a few bags of those i like to release a few thousand of them in my garden and they'll hang out usually as long as the food source lasts and the next method is using an insecticide but it's very mild so it's called diatomaceous earth this is something that i can use in the summertime easier than i can in the spring or fall because you have to reapply it every time it gets wet so if you live in a really rainy area this is a little this would probably be a little bit hard for you but what it is it's a powder that's really sharp it's not sharp for us but it's sharp for these little soft bodied insects when they crawl over it it just rips their bodies up which sounds horrible but it's very mild and it won't hurt other things that are flying around in your garden like honeybees and things like that okay so we had to throw an umbrella up because the sun started streaming through because my legs totally fell asleep so i had to stand up for a while to let them come back to life and in that time the sun changed and we may have to move locations here in a second because the guys are just finishing up our brick pathway today and i see they're getting at one of their big machines which makes a lot of noise so anyway i'll try to get through this right here personally when i have an aphid problem get this bad and i have this much of an outbreak i prefer to use an insecticide spray something natural or organic which i have three natural products right here that i will show you as opposed to something synthetic but no matter what you're using at the end of the day they're all insecticides so you need to make sure that you are using them responsibly so spray at dusk after everything has kind of gone to bed honeybees aren't working they're not out anymore activity is kind of at a lull or very very early first thing in the morning before there's a lot of activity going on and if you are using synthetic over something natural like these right here you want to make sure that you are suiting up properly that you have long sleeves gloves a mask depending on the spray but that's why i feel so comfortable with these like this one right here this is the one i'm going to be using today this is called midex this one's actually labeled for house plants you can use this in your home so i just feel so much more comfortable using something like this this one is made of a bunch of different like essential oils basically i mean cottonseed oil clove oil and garlic oil are what the active ingredients are in this one and this one also controls like mites and thrips and a whole bunch of other things it smells kind of nice too so when you're spraying you want to make sure that you are covering the plant like from the top from the underside you want it to pretty much be dripping and then you want to rotate what you're using so typically with an outbreak like this i need to spray once a week at least two or three times to get it completely under control so i'll spray with the mitex today and then next week i will go in with this one this is called rosex and the active is a neem oil which is for organic gardening as well and that way you make sure that you're kind of covering the whole life cycle of the aphid and you're picking up any of the extras that you may have missed the first time you sprayed and then i brought this one out as well which i may not have to use but this is an insecticidal soap this works pretty good i use this in our greenhouse in fact that's where i had to go get it to bring it over here today so let me show you how i spray it's pretty basic but you want to get in as close as possible to especially where all the aphids are and just give them a good dousing make sure that plant is dripping do the undersides of the leaves as well as on top and then make sure that you're getting even the branches and down in the soil too like the soil around your plant because bugs can drop off and be living down there we don't want anything to crawl back up so for those of you who are dealing with aphids and you've never dealt with them before you're just unsure what the best thing is to use i hope this gives you a few natural options i feel comfortable recommending these because you know if you look at the label right here on the rosex you want to look for something that says for organic gardening because it's not necessarily the best idea to walk into the store and just buy the first bottle that says that it kills aphids because it doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy or good for you or your garden and i just feel so much more comfortable using natural products whenever i can so anyway that's it hopefully this video was helpful if you're dealing with aphids and as we come across problems in our garden we will be sure to bring you along for how we are taking care of it because it's just one of those things we all have to deal with and it's not fun but it's just part of the whole process so thank you guys so much for watching this video and we will see you in the next one bye

Channel: Garden Answer

Views: 509,225

Keywords: Garden, Answer, Laura, Flower, gardening, gardener, beautiful, succulents, diy, grow, green, Proven, Winners, Fall, Winter, summer, spring, plant, planting, growing, plants, succulent, shrubs, shrub, bush, soil, dirt, earth

Id: 8rOJZABekmc

Length: 8min 9sec (489 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2019